Krishna Kumar Rai

By Krishna Kumar Rai, Nagendra Rai and Shashi Pandey-Rai

Hyacinth bean also known as Indian bean is multipurpose legume crops consumed both as food by humans and as forage by animals. Being a rich source of protein, it also produces distinct secondary metabolites such as flavonoids, phenols and tyrosinase which not only help strengthened plant’s own innate immunity against abiotic/biotrophic attackers but also play important therapeutic role in the treatment of various chronic diseases. However, despite its immense therapeutic and nutritional attributes in strengthening food, nutrition and therapeutic security in many developing countries, it is still considered as an “orphan crop” for unravelling its genetic potential and underlying molecular mechanisms for enhancing secondary metabolite production. Several lines of literatures have well documented the use of OMICS based techniques and biotic and abiotic elicitors for stimulating secondary metabolite production particularly in model as well as in few economically important crops. However, only limited reports have described their application for stimulating secondary metabolite production in underutilised crops. Therefore, the present chapter will decipher different dimensions of multi-omics tools and their integration with other conventional techniques (biotic and abiotic elicitors) for unlocking hidden genetic potential of hyacinth bean for elevating the production of secondary metabolites having pharmaceutical and therapeutic application. Additionally, the study will also provide valuable insights about how these advance OMICS tools can be successfully exploited for accelerating functional genomics and breeding research for unravelling their hidden pharmaceutical and therapeutic potential thereby ensuring food and therapeutic security for the betterment of mankind.

Part of the book: Legumes Research