Breeding crops for enhanced food safety
Melotto, Maeli | Brandl, Maria | Jacob, Cristián | Russell, Michele | Micallef, Shirley | Warburton, Marilyn Louise | Deynze, Allen
The substantial impact of foodborne disease outbreaks on public health and the economy has led to multidisciplinary research aimed to understand the biology underlying the different contamination processes. Here we review the knowledge, opportunities, and challenges of plant breeding as a tool to enhance food safety of plant-based products. First, we discuss the significant effect of plant genotypic and phenotypic variation in the contamination of plants by heavy metals, mycotoxin-producing fungi, and human pathogenic bacteria. In addition, we discuss the various factors (i.e., temperature, relative humidity, soil, microbiota, cultural practices, and plant developmental stage) that can influence the interaction between plant genetic diversity and contaminant. This exposes the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to understand plant genotype x environment x microbe x management interactions. Moreover, we show that the numerous possibilities of crop/hazard combinations make imperative the definition and identification of high-risk pairs, such as Salmonella/tomato and Escherichia coli/lettuce, for breeding programs geared toward improving microbial safety of produce. Finally, we discuss research on developing effective assays and approaches for selecting desirable breeding germplasm. Overall, it is recognized that although breeding programs for some human pathogen/toxin systems are ongoing (e.g., Fusarium in wheat), it would be premature to start breeding when targets and testing systems are not well defined. Nevertheless, current research is paving the way toward this goal and this review highlights advances in the field and critical points for the success of this initiative.
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