Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are a rich source of iron (Fe), zinc (Zn) and certain other microelements that are generally found to be lower in cereals and other crops. Micronutrients like Fe and Zn play an important role in both plant and animal metabolism. In humans, Fe is essential for preventing anaemia and for the proper functioning of many metabolic processes, whereas Zn is essential for proper growth and for resistance to gastro enteric and other respiratory infections. In Plants, Fe and Zn play important role in maintaining proper metabolic and physiological cellular processes. Deficiency of these nutrients leads to various abnormalities in both plants and animals. In order to enhance their uptake in plants, there is a need to identify genes that are involved in transport of these micronutrients. We here propose proteogenomics based approaches for identification of candidate genes regulating uptake of these micronutrients. We evaluated seeds of 138 diverse common bean genotypes for Fe, Zn and protein contents. We observed significant variation among these genotypes for Fe, Zn and protein contents. The Fe and Zn contents varied from (0.059 mg 100 g-1 to 7.22 mg 100 g-1) and (0.15 mg 100 g-1 to 1.931 mg 100 g-1) respectively. Further, protein content varied from 7.2% to 31.6%. No correlation among Fe, Zn and protein content was observed. Now we are in process of developing a mapping population for identifying genes/QTLs contributing for higher accumulation of Fe and Zn. Moreover, for understanding the genetic regulation of these micronutrients we will focus on gel based proteomic approach.

Biography

Email: smzargar@gmail.com