Youzhi Li

State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-bioresources, Guangxi Research Center for Microbial and Enzyme Engineering Technology, College of Life Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, Guangxi, China
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2024, Vol. 15, No. 2   
Received: 30 Jan., 2024    Accepted: 05 Mar., 2024    Published: 17 Mar., 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a perennial shrub but a root crop in Euphorbiaceae, produces a bulk of starch in the storage roots and serves as a staple food for millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions. Additionally, cassava starch is widely used in food processing and industrial sectors due to its unique physicochemical properties of swelling and solubility, gelatinization, retrogradation, pasting, and viscoelasticity. Up to now, the starch biosynthesis and improvement have been well reviewed by a large number of literature at different layers and aspects in other plant species/crops but the understanding is limited in cassava. Therefore, how to increase starch yield and improve starch properties has received great attention. This article briefly reviews plant starch biosynthesis, and complexity of starch biosynthesis, cases of engineering-based improvement of starch yield and properties, quantitative trait loci controlling starch yield and properties, challenges of breeding and engineering, and opportunities and future prospects in cassava.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz); Starch biosynthesis; Engineering starch; Starch yield; Starch properties