New sunflower seeds with high contents of phytosterols
Dietary phytosterols have a positive nutritional impact because they contribute to reduce cholesterol levels in blood. Accordingly, foods rich in phytosterols are required in a healthy diet. Vegetable oils are the richest source of phytosterols in the diet, though sunfl...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
EDP Sciences
2014-11-01
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| Series: | Oilseeds and fats, crops and lipids |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/ocl/2014036 |
| Summary: | Dietary phytosterols have a positive nutritional impact because they contribute to reduce
cholesterol levels in blood. Accordingly, foods rich in phytosterols are required in a
healthy diet. Vegetable oils are the richest source of phytosterols in the diet, though
sunflower oil has lower phytosterol content than other seed oils such as rapeseed and
corn. Increasing phytosterol content in sunflower oil requires optimizing first selection
procedures. In this way, the development of accurate methods for analyzing phytosterol
content in seeds instead of oils has opened up recently the way for large-scale screening
for this trait. Large variability for seed phytosterol content has been identified in
sunflower germplasm, from which we have developed a line, IASP-18, with about twofold seed
phytosterol content than conventional sunflower. The trait is expressed across
environments. Genetic studies are underway to characterize its inheritance and assess the
feasibility of introgressing genes for high phytosterol content into elite sunflower
germplasm. |
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| ISSN: | 2272-6977 2257-6614 |