Advances in Nutritional Quality of Major Cereal Crops: From Gene Discovery to Precision Breeding

Cereal crop improvement is central to global food, feed, and nutritional security, yet gains in grain yield, adaptation, and stress tolerance have not always been matched by improvements in nutritional quality. Protein concentration and amino-acid balance, starch composition and digestibility, oil and fatty-acid profiles, dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds are influenced by complex genetic, developmental, physiological, and environmental factors. Nutritional value is also shaped by nutrient distribution within the grain, bioavailability, and antinutritional compounds such as phytate and condensed tannins. Recent advances in quantitative genetics, pangenomics, functional genomics, multi-omics, high-throughput phenotyping, genome editing, genomic prediction, and artificial intelligence have accelerated the discovery of genes and pathways underlying grain composition. However, translating these discoveries into stable, high-performing cultivars remains difficult because nutritional traits are frequently polygenic, environment-sensitive, and genetically or physiologically associated with trade-offs involving yield, maturity, stress resilience, processing quality, and agronomic performance. Further research is needed to validate causal mechanisms, clarify genotype–environment–management interactions, and connect gene discovery with field-level breeding outcomes across diverse cereal crops.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of the genetic, molecular, physiological, developmental, and environmental mechanisms that determine nutritional quality in major cereal crops. It will examine how genetic variation, metabolic regulation, nutrient uptake and transport, source–sink relationships, grain development, and genotype–environment interactions influence nutrient composition, stability, digestibility, and bioavailability-related traits. It will also assess how functional genomics, genome editing, marker-assisted selection, genomic prediction, speed breeding, high-throughput phenotyping, crop modelling, and artificial intelligence can support the development of nutritionally improved, agronomically competitive, and climate-resilient cultivars. Particular emphasis will be placed on maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum, while comparative studies involving barley, millets, oats, rye, triticale, teff, and other cereals are also encouraged.To gather further insights into the discovery, validation, and deployment of nutritional quality traits in major cereal crops, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Genetic architecture of nutritional traits, including QTL mapping, GWAS, pangenomics, haplotype analysis, and causal-gene discovery.• Protein content and quality, amino-acid composition, storage proteins, digestibility, and relationships between nutritional and end-use quality.• Starch, oil, fatty-acid, dietary-fibre, and cell-wall composition, including biosynthesis, structure, digestibility, and functional properties.• Vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, phenolics, and other bioactive compounds, including their genetic regulation and grain distribution.• Biofortification, nutrient partitioning, bioavailability-related traits, and reduction of antinutritional compounds.• Nutrient uptake, transport, remobilization, source–sink relationships, grain loading, and tissue-specific regulation of nutrient accumulation.• Functional genomics, gene regulation, epigenetics, genome editing, transgenic approaches, and related biotechnologies.• Transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, ionomics, phenomics, and integrated multi-omics with clear biological or breeding relevance.• Genetic diversity, landraces, wild relatives, germplasm resources, pre-breeding, and comparative genomics across cereal crops.• Marker-assisted selection, genomic prediction, speed breeding, breeding by design, crop modelling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.• High-throughput and non-destructive approaches for assessing grain composition, nutrient distribution, digestibility, and nutritional stability.• Genotype–environment–management interactions under heat, drought, elevated carbon dioxide, soil nutrient limitations, and other production conditions.• Trade-offs and synergies among nutritional quality, nutrient yield, grain yield, maturity, stress resilience, processing quality, and agronomic performance.• Field validation, multi-environment testing, breeding deployment, and development of regionally adapted, nutritionally improved cultivars.• Comparative studies identifying shared genes, pathways, and breeding opportunities while preserving crop-specific differences.We welcome Original Research, Brief Research Reports, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, Methods, and Opinion articles that meet the scientific quality and scope requirements of Frontiers in Plant Science. Topic editors: Alla Singh, Mukesh Choudhary, Dinesh Kumar Saini, Tinku Gautam Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84143/advances-in-nutritional-quality-of-major-cereal-crops-from-gene-discovery-to-precision-breeding