Improvement of green leafy vegetables: The role of plant tissue culture and biotechnology

Abstract

Biotechnological improvement of both ornamental and edible, i.e. food value plants, is one of the important research areas since five decades throughout the world. Especially in vitro propagation technology has come as an aid to accomplish the targets of sustainable propagation of both traditional plants of commercial importance, to rescue the endangered plant species, and also for their qualitative and quantitative improvement. From nutritional and nutraceutical point of view, green leafy vegetables or leafy greens play a pivotal role in view of their potential health benefits. Significant focus has been given for this category of plants by employing in vitro propagation methods to get an efficient mass multiplication, somatic embryogenesis for sustainable cultivation, and also through callus suspension cultures for achieving augmented yield of high-value secondary metabolites. Apart from this, attempts have been made to mobilise the desired traits of nutritionally important biomolecules through genetic engineering into leafy vegetables to alleviate nutrient-deficient diseases in consumers. In addition to this, the well-documented optimised methodologies to leafy vegetables would help as an in vitro model for elucidating the biosynthetic pathways of respective nutritionally important molecules. Under this context, various developments in the above said areas pertaining to green leafy vegetables would be having implications for value addition through food technology. Accordingly, a review on various biotechnological aspects of green leafy vegetables has been contemplated, and the same will be covered in this chapter.