ARS | Publication request: NUTRITIONAL PHYSIOLOGY AND GENOMICS OF DEVELOPING LEGUME SEEDS

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: July 1, 2002
Publication Date: July 1, 2002
Citation: GRUSAK, M.A. NUTRITIONAL PHYSIOLOGY AND GENOMICS OF DEVELOPING LEGUME SEEDS. ABSTRACTS OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LEGUME GENOMICS AND GENETICS: TRANSLATION TO CROP IMPROVEMENT. 2002. p.68

Technical Abstract: Legume seeds are an important source of dietary nutrients for humans throughout the world. They provide basic energy in the form of starches and lipids, they are a source of amino acids for protein, and also provide essential minerals, fatty acids, vitamins, and various health-promoting phytochemicals. Because legumes provide a significant proportion of dietary food intake in certain regions of the world, especially in developing countries where energy, protein, and/or micronutrient malnutrition can be prevalent, we and others have been interested in enhancing the nutritional quality of legume seed crops in order to ensure adequate nutrition of all human populations. To assist this effort, my group has taken a broad-based approach in which we have utilized agronomic species such as pea and chickpea, along with the model legume, Medicago truncatula, to characterize and identify physiological processes and molecular mechanisms of relevance to seed growth and seed nutritional quality in legumes. In this presentation, we will discuss some of our recent work in the areas of seed mineral import, dry matter allocation to seeds (relative to pod walls), and the expression of "seed" storage protein genes. We will discuss how Medicago truncatula can be used as a model system to accelerate our understanding of and gene discovery in legume seed biology and nutritional physiology. This work was funded by USDA-ARS Cooperative Agreement No. 58-6250-1-003.