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Mycotoxins represent an assorted range of secondary fungal metabolites that extensively occur in numerous food and feed ingredients at any stage during pre- and post-harvest conditions. Zearalenone (ZEN), a mycotoxin categorized as a xenoestrogen poses structural similarity with natural estrogens that enables its binding to the estrogen receptors leading to hormonal misbalance and numerous reproductive diseases. ZEN is mainly found in crops belonging to temperate regions, primarily in maize and other cereal crops that form an important part of various food and feed. Because of the significant adverse effects of ZEN on both human and animal, there is an alarming need for effective detection, mitigation, and management strategies to assure food and feed safety and security. The present review tends to provide an updated overview of the different sources, occurrence and biosynthetic mechanisms of ZEN in various food and feed. It also provides insight to its harmful effects on human health and agriculture along with its effective detection, management, and control strategies.

The study aimed to identify the male-fertility restoration locus ( Ms ) among 72 breeding lines of onion ( Allium cepa L.) by genotyping, which is crucial in the development of F 1 hybrid onions using cytoplasmic-genic male sterility (CGMS) system. Thus, two markers were used to identify the Ms locus, the simple PCR marker namely jnurf20 is dominant nature cover across the breeding lines genetic backgrounds, whereas the PsaO gene-specific marker could not spread all along the breeding lines evaluated in the study. Since all reported markers are may or may not have marker genotype association across different genetic backgrounds of onion breeding lines. However, these molecular markers are highly useful in the marker-assisted selection of Ms locus. Thus, this study reveals the amplification of validated markers among the breeding lines used, the study essential to advance the marker-assisted breeding for the development of F 1 hybrid onions in near future.

Citrinin (CIT) is a mycotoxin produced by different species of Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Monascus. CIT can contaminate a wide range of foods and feeds at any time during the pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest stages. CIT can be usually found in beans, fruits, fruit and vegetable juices, herbs and spices, and dairy products, as well as red mold rice. CIT exerts nephrotoxic and genotoxic effects in both humans and animals, thereby raising concerns regarding the consumption of CIT-contaminated food and feed. Hence, to minimize the risk of CIT contamination in food and feed, understanding the incidence of CIT occurrence, its sources, and biosynthetic pathways could assist in the effective implementation of detection and mitigation measures. Therefore, this review aims to shed light on sources of CIT, its prevalence in food and feed, biosynthetic pathways, and genes involved, with a major focus on detection and management strategies to ensure the safety and security of food and feed.

Cereals and cereal-based products are primary sources of nutrition across the world. However, contamination of these foods with aflatoxins (AFs), secondary metabolites produced by several fungal species, has raised serious concerns. AF generation in innate substrates is influenced by several parameters, including the substrate type, fungus species, moisture content, minerals, humidity, temperature, and physical injury to the kernels. Consumption of AF-contaminated cereals and cereal-based products can lead to both acute and chronic health issues related to physical and mental maturity, reproduction, and the nervous system. Therefore, the precise detection methods, detoxification, and management strategies of AFs in cereal and cereal-based products are crucial for food safety as well as consumer health. Hence, this review provides a brief overview of the occurrence, chemical characteristics, biosynthetic processes, health hazards, and detection techniques of AFs, along with a focus on detoxification and management strategies that could be implemented for food safety and security.

Mycotoxins are fungi-produced secondary metabolites that can contaminate many foods eaten by humans and animals. Deoxynivalenol (DON), which is formed by Fusarium, is one of the most common occurring predominantly in cereal grains and thus poses a significant health risk. When DON is ingested, it can cause both acute and chronic toxicity. Acute signs include abdominal pain, anorexia, diarrhea, increased salivation, vomiting, and malaise. The most common effects of chronic DON exposure include changes in dietary efficacy, weight loss, and anorexia. This review provides a succinct overview of various sources, biosynthetic mechanisms, and genes governing DON production, along with its consequences on human and animal health. It also covers the effect of environmental factors on its production with potential detection, management, and control strategies.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi that infect a wide range of foods worldwide. Nivalenol (NIV), a type B trichothecene produced by numerous Fusarium species, has the ability to infect a variety of foods both in the field and during post-harvest handling and management. NIV is frequently found in cereal and cereal-based goods, and its strong cytotoxicity poses major concerns for both human and animal health. To address these issues, this review briefly overviews the sources, occurrence, chemistry and biosynthesis of NIV. Additionally, a brief overview of several sophisticated detection and management techniques is included, along with the implications of processing and environmental factors on the formation of NIV. This review’s main goal is to offer trustworthy and current information on NIV as a mycotoxin concern in foods, with potential mitigation measures to assure food safety and security.

Carrot root being used as vegetable and salad due to the nutritional value, hence consumers demanding carrot production. Thus, the production can be achieved by an understanding of the genetics of root traits namely root length, root weight, root diameter, core diameter, flesh thickness and root to top (shoot) ratio. Thus, the results assist in the development of carrot hybrids or varieties. Genetic analysis of economic traits of carrot was estimated through three cross combinations, and the results revealed the existence of additive [ d ], dominance [ h ], additive × additive [ i ], additive × dominance [ j ] and dominance × dominance [ l ] gene actions. The nature and magnitude of gene interaction and effects showed the importance of the inheritance modes, and the complimentary type of non-epistatic gene action of traits could be used for the exploitation of heterosis through favourable positive [ h ] and [ l ] gene interaction and effects. This information on root genetics aided to the adoption of suitable breeding method, handling and selection of segregates with desirable economic traits.

Main conclusionThe present review illustrates a comprehensive overview of the allele mining for genetic improvement in vegetable crops, and allele exploration methods and their utilization in various applications related to pre-breeding of economically important traits in vegetable crops.Vegetable crops have numerous wild descendants, ancestors and terrestrial races that could be exploited to develop high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties resistant/tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses. To further boost the genetic potential of economic traits, the available genomic tools must be targeted and re-opened for exploitation of novel alleles from genetic stocks by the discovery of beneficial alleles from wild relatives and their introgression to cultivated types. This capability would be useful for giving plant breeders direct access to critical alleles that confer higher production, improve bioactive compounds, increase water and nutrient productivity as well as biotic and abiotic stress resilience. Allele mining is a new sophisticated technique for dissecting naturally occurring allelic variants in candidate genes that influence important traits which could be used for genetic improvement of vegetable crops. Target-induced local lesions in genomes (TILLINGs) is a sensitive mutation detection avenue in functional genomics, particularly wherein genome sequence information is limited or not available. Population exposure to chemical mutagens and the absence of selectivity lead to TILLING and EcoTILLING. EcoTILLING may lead to natural induction of SNPs and InDels. It is anticipated that as TILLING is used for vegetable crops improvement in the near future, indirect benefits will become apparent. Therefore, in this review we have highlighted the up-to-date information on allele mining for genetic enhancement in vegetable crops and methods of allele exploration and their use in pre-breeding for improvement of economic traits.

The results of the inheritance study revealed that the purple root epiderm ( Pe ) and cortex ( Pcx ) colour were dominant over the yellow colour of epiderm ( ye ) and cortex ( ycx ), respectively and were governed by a single dominant gene, whereas yellow core ( Yc ) colour was dominant over the purple core ( pc ) of carrot root regulated by a single dominant gene, thus dominant genes could be used for exploitation of root colour heterosis. Flavonoids profiling of carrots population revealed the presence of three acylated compounds and two nonacylated compounds of five cyanidin derivatives of anthocyanin compounds in Black-Purple, Rose-Purple, Red-Purple and Grey-Purple colour roots. The Grey-Purple colour roots had solid purple on the epidermal layer and solid yellow colour on outer core revealed the highest β-carotene and lutein. The eighteen polymorphic molecular markers in F 2 mapping population identified out of 420 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers used in this study were used for the genotyping of F 2 mapping population developed from hybridization between two diverse inbreds possessing purple and yellow colour root. Therefore, genomic simple sequence repeats (GSSRs) and BAC end sequence based SSR (BSSR markers) will play an important role in the selection of anthocyanin-rich lines due to precise phenotype selection, cost-effectiveness and time- saving in the nutritional improvement of carrot through marker-assisted breeding.

Late blight ( Phytophthora infestans ), characterized by small water-soaked areas that rapidly enlarge to form purple-brown, oily appearing blotches, is the most destructive fungal disease that continues to stymie worldwide tomato production. Severe outbreaks have been recorded in tomato-growing areas throughout the world in recent years, and the vast majority of commercial tomato cultivars are extremely vulnerable to the late blight infection. The aim of this study was to screen the wild tomato  Solanum habrochaites accessions LA1223, LA1353, LA1718, LA1777, LA2156, LA2167, and LA2556 under natural disease pressure conditions to find a possible source of resistance to late blight and also characterized these accessions for various morphological characters. Three S. habrochaites accessions (LA1777, LA2167, and LA2556) were resistant and superior to the susceptible check. With a PDI of 22.29, LA 1777 was shown to have the highest resistance, and as such, it may be used as a donor for late blight resistant tomato pre-breeding programmes in the near future. The success of high crossability (percentage) of some hybrid combinations using LA1777 as a male parent, such as LA3846 × LA1777 (77.77), LA2377 × LA1777 (62.50), and LA3317 × LA1777 (60.00), is encouraging for the development of pre-breeding genetic stocks as well as for the discovery of novel alleles in wild tomato populations. The morphological characterization of seven wild tomato accessions mainly confirms the guidelines of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. These accessions and their interspecific crosses showed wide variability in phenotypic and reproductive characters for plant height, flower color, exserted stigma, leaf margin, flowering time, fruit set, and other economic traits that will facilitate breeders in the development of superior tomato cultivars and F 1 hybrids resistant to biotic stresses, as well as differentiate these S. habrochaites accessions for their potential use in genetic enhancement of cultivated tomatoes.