Variation in important seed constituents among various chickpea genotypes
Main Article Content
Keywords
chickpea, anti-nutrients, raffinose family oligosaccharides
Abstract
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the third most important pulse crop and an excellent source of protein in the human diet (Garg et al., 2011). However, the presence of anti-nutritional factors like the raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFO) restrains its acceptability as food and feed (Olmedilla Alonso et al., 2010). Higher concentration of RFO in chickpea seeds affects human health negatively and plays an important physiological role in plants (MartinezVillaluenga et al., 2008). Hence, there is a need to reduce RFO concentration in seeds without affecting plant growth. To achieve this objective, it is imperative to understand the biochemical mechanism and genetic basis of the RFO biosynthetic pathway. As a first step, we studied the variation in RFO concentration along with starch and protein in a germplasm collection of 152 genotypes.
References
Martinez-Villaluenga C., Frias J., Vidal-Valverde C. (2008)Alpha-galactosides: antinutritional factors or functional ingredients? Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr,48, 301–316.
Olmedilla Alonso B., Farré Rovir R., Asensio Vegas C., Martín Pedrosa M.(2010) The role of pulses in the present-day diet. Actividad Dietetica,14, 72–76.