The Potential of Small Grains Crops in Enhancing Biofortification Breeding Strategies for Human Health Benefit

Abstract

Nutrition is a source of energy, and building material for the human organism. The quality of food has an effect on the quality of individual life. Minerals and vitamins participate in various catalytic and regulatory functions of the main metabolic processes: absorption, transport, redox and biosynthesis of organic compounds, genetic information transfer, etc. Regular consumption of dietary fibers like β-glucans and oat-specific phenolics, antioxidants, and avenanthramides, stimulate innate and acquired immunity, prevent cancer, obesity, reduce glucose, total cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels and regulate the expression of cholesterol-related genes. Thus, all those compounds are vitally important for the normal functional status of the human body. A deficiency in one or another essential nutrient causes disruptions in human metabolism, thus leading to serious illnesses. Plants are the main source of essential nutrients that are bioavailable for humans. One of the most popular groups of staple crops are the small grains crops (SGC), so these crops are most often used for biofortification purposes. Exploiting the potential of plant resources, biofortification is a long-term strategy, aimed at increasing the number of essential micro- and macronutrients in major food sources and ensuring their bioavailability. The most productive way to implement such strategy is the active use of the possibilities offered by collections of plant genetic resources, including SGC, concentrated in various countries of the world. The collections of plant resources contain both cultivated plants and their wild relatives that possess the required composition of micro- and macronutrients. A complex scientific approach to studying plant germplasm collections, together with agricultural practices (soil enrichment with fertilizers with a required composition), genetic biofortification (traditional breeding, marker-assisted selection or genetic engineering tactics), and their combinations will lead to the development of new biofortified cultivars and improvement of old ones, which can be used to solve the problems of unbalanced nutrition (malnutrition or hidden hunger) in different regions of the world.