Biotechnological approaches for genetic improvement of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graceum L.)

Abstract Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the important medicinal plants of ancient medicinal systems due to its high nutraceutical and pharmaceutical properties. Seeds and leaves of Fenugreek contain phytochemicals like diosgenin and trigonelline. It is a cultivated plant of the modern world for medicinal uses, an edible vegetable, and a forage plant. Advancement in industrial and biotechnological techniques for the isolation of phytochemicals increase the demand of Fenugreek, and its breeding programs are based on improving the secondary metabolites compared to other uses. Recent advancement in modern biotechnological approaches enables researchers to develop elite cultivars of desired traits in a short time. Application of modern techniques like artificial mutations under in vitro conditions, characterization using molecular markers, and development of successful plant tissue culture techniques, genetic transformation techniques, and functional genomics studies have significant potential to improve Fenugreek traits. The study highlights the application of biotechnological approaches used for the development of elite Fenugreek traits for the researchers for future breeding programs. Furthermore, the research gap and areas to improve research have been highlighted in this present study. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018