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Salient Biotechnological Interventions in Saffron (Crocus sativus L.): A Major Source of Bio-active Apocarotenoids

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Natural Bio-active Compounds

Abstract

Crocus sativus (L.) is considered to be one of the high-value spices cultivated around the globe, and hence is under scanner of the genomic approaches that have been used to study the identification, expression, and regulation of the key genes involved in its flower development and apocarotenoid biosynthesis. C. sativus flower contains in excess of 150 compounds of aromatic and vaporescent. It produces remarkable amounts of apocarotenoids, such as crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal, that exhibit a wide range of anticancer, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and cardioprotective activities. These apocarotenoids displaying such a wide range of pharmacological activities are of huge interest to culinary and pharmaceutical industries. Advances in biotechnological interventions, like genomic technologies, functional genomics, and transcriptomics studies, have revealed the expression of genes and/or structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genes encoding apocarotenoid biosynthesis and enabled C. sativus genetic improvements in an efficient way through molecular breeding programs. The application of genomic tools and techniques has encouraged C. sativus breeders to adopt precision breeding approaches. The present chapter attempts to traverse across the recent developments in genetics and genomics-based researches conducted in C. sativus to perceive the biosynthetic pathways of its major secondary metabolites.

Maryam Vahedi and Saikat Gantait have equally contributed for this chapter.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor of this chapter for their critical comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Horticultural Science, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Engineering, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

    Maryam Vahedi & Roghaye Karimi

  2. Department of Biotechnology, Shri A. N. Patel P. G. Institute of Science and Research, Anand, Gujarat, India

    Jitendriya Panigrahi

  3. Crop Research Unit, Directorate of Research, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India

    Saikat Gantait

  4. Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal, India

    Saikat Gantait

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  1. Maryam Vahedi
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Correspondence to Maryam Vahedi .

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  1. Department of Botany, Gandhi Faiz-e-Aam College, Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Mohd Sayeed Akhtar

  2. Department of Biotechnology, East West First Grade College of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

    Mallappa Kumara Swamy

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Vahedi, M., Karimi, R., Panigrahi, J., Gantait, S. (2019). Salient Biotechnological Interventions in Saffron (Crocus sativus L.): A Major Source of Bio-active Apocarotenoids. In: Akhtar, M., Swamy, M. (eds) Natural Bio-active Compounds. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7438-8_8

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