Nutragenomic Approaches in Sunflower: Genetic Improvement in Oil Quality

Sunflower is an important oilseed crop. Worldwide, it ranks fifth in cultivation among oilseed crops. Sunflower oil is preferred for domestic consumption as well as for cooking due to its nutritional quality. The sunflower oil quality is decided based on the proportion of various fatty acids and tocopherols. Recent breeding efforts in sunflower require a special focus on altering the oil quality. Breeding of new sunflower genotypes for food and nonfood industries assures a bright future for sunflower. Recent developments in molecular techniques helped to understand the genetic architecture of sunflower traits and the changes that happened during domestication. The availability of the sunflower genome sequence made a real breakthrough in sunflower molecular biology. This sequence could be effectively used to locate QTLs associated with various traits. It may help to understand the metabolic pathways of various quality traits. It may also help to replace SSR markers with SNPs. The valorization of the nutritional aspects of sunflower would throw the limelight in the realization of oil sustainability and enhance the circular economy in the global oilseed market.