Location: Responsive Agricultural Food Systems Research Unit
Project Number: 3093-10700-001-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Nov 25, 2025
End Date: Nov 24, 2030
Objective:
Objective 1: Characterize the health impacts of phytochemical or nutrient-enriched food crops and the molecular mechanisms that regulate their enrichment.
Sub-objective 1A: Conduct multi-omic analysis of Hi-A corn and sorghum using genomic, metabolomic, and ionomic approaches to link molecular pathways with anthocyanin or micronutrient pathways.
Sub-objective 1B: Examine the efficacy of polyphenol-enriched tomatoes in improving HFD-associated metabolic dysfunction.
Objective 2: Examine the impact of environmental factors on nutritional status and health outcomes and on the nutrient and phytochemical composition of foods.
Sub-objective 2A: Evaluate effects of temperature and soils on phytochemical accumulation in crops leveraging field site variation.
Subobjective 2B: Evaluate the impact of heat and maternal malnutrition co-exposure on placental function, offspring growth and metabolism.
Approach:
Diet-related chronic diseases are the leading cause of poor health and primary drivers of health care spending in the United States. Approaches to improve diet quality have to holistically incorporate key nodes across the food value chain (eg. production, development, behavior change) while balancing environmental and economic tradeoffs. Key to this goal is the purposeful development of interdisciplinary multisector teams that focus on nutritional and health outcomes and leverage innovations in respective sectors to improve health. This plan embraces such an approach via integrating a diverse group of researchers focused on chronic disease prevention. The proposed studies focus on three areas: improving the nutritional value of staple crops (Objective 1), evaluating the health impacts of novel foods (Objective 1), and examining the interaction between nutrition and environmental factors during development (Objective 2) (Figure 1). Studies will focus on enhancing the nutritional content of corn and sorghum. Leveraging anthocyanin-enriched corn (Hi-A corn), and sorghum varieties with increased iron and zinc, studies will integrate multi-omics and systems approaches to uncover genetic mechanisms underlying nutrient fortification that balance yield with nutritional quality. The health effects of anthocyanin-enriched ‘purple tomatoes’, as model crop will be assessed using a well-established mouse model of obesity and metabolic dysfunction, to investigate the potential to improve mitochondrial health and reduce inflammation. The plan will also investigate how nutritional status and environmental stressors, particularly heat, impact plant phytochemicals and chronic disease risk via developmental programming. Studies will focus on the impacts of co-exposure on placental development, function, transcriptomics and the persistent impacts on chronic disease risk in offspring. Overall, the proposed plan will provide valuable data on crop biofortification, the health impacts of novel foods, and the influence of environmental factors on development. This information will inform strategic approaches to improve dietary quality aimed at chronic disease prevention.