Healthy values and de novo domestication of sand rice (Agriophyllum squarrosum), a comparative view against Chenopodium quinoa

Abstract

Sand rice (Agriophyllum squarrosum) is prized for its well-balanced nutritional properties, broad adaptability in Central Asia and highly therapeutic potentials. It has been considered as a potential climate-resilient crop. Its seed has comparable metabolite profile with Chenopodium quinoa and is rich in proteins, essential amino acids, minerals, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and phenolics, but low in carbohydrates. Phenolics like protocatechuic acid and quercetins have been characterized with biological functions on regulation of lipid and glucose metabolism in addition to anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. Sand rice is thus an important source for developing functional and nutraceutical products. Though historical consumption has been over 1300 years, sand rice has undergone few agronomic improvements until recently. Breeding by individual selection has been performed and yield of the best genotype can reach up to 1295.5 kg/ha. Furthermore, chemical mutagenesis has been used to modify the undesirable traits and a case study of a dwarf line (dwarf1), which showed the Green Revolution-like phenotypes, is presented. Utilization of both breeding methodologies will accelerate its domestication process. As a novel crop, sand rice research is rather limited compared with quinoa. More scientific input is urgently required if the nutritional and commercial potentials are to be fully realized.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2021.1999202 .

Keywords:

• Functional food
• de novo domestication
• sand rice
• Agriophyllum squarrosum
• Chenopodium quinoa
• nutraceutical effects

Acknowledgements

We specially thank Prof. Kang Tu and Ms. Jing Peng for supplying the original data on sand rice protein properties (Peng et al. 2017, Food Science). We thank Dr. Shuyin Bao for kindly supplying the original data related to rat body weight, food intake, and water intake (Bao et al. 2016b, Journal of Jilin University (Medicine Edition), which are very helpful for the PCA analyses in this study. Both publications are correctly cited in above main text. Thank to Dr. Guangyin Hu for his help to present the distribution of Agriophyllum species on world map with ArcGIS.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [31870381 and 31970352]; the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS under Grant [2018463]; and the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province for Distinguished Young Scholar under Grant [20JR5RA547].