Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik): Nutritional Profile and Biofortification Prospects

Lentil is a highly consumed pulse crop in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and many other countries. This crop is rich in nutrients which are easy to digest and palatable. In the form of a whole food source of nutrition, it can minimize the effect of malnutrition which is prevalent worldwide. Biofortification as a tool provides us great opportunity to further enhance nutrient content biologically. A few studies showed considerable genetic variability for nutrients including iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium, selenium, prebiotic carbohydrates, and folate concentration in lentil, which may be further improved. While breeding for nutrients, the role of environmental effects should be taken into consideration to provide a widely adapted plant variety. A number of genomic regions have been mapped using molecular markers; however, the intensity and coverage of the experiments were low, and this area needs more efforts to make marker-assisted breeding a reality in lentil breeding for nutritional traits. Lentil also has anti-nutrients like phytic acid, which influences the bioavailability of nutrients. In addition to traditional breeding approaches, efforts are underway to make use of cis- or transgenic technologies to enhance nutritional quality in many crops; the same may be adopted based on need in the case of lentil. Biofortified lentil varieties recently released which are rich in iron and zinc concentration; however, more varieties are required to cover different agroclimatic regions or niches. In short, more focused efforts are required to identify high-yielding, biotic and abiotic stress-tolerant, and nutrient-rich new-generation lentil varieties that will definitely boost health status among the consumers, especially from today’s perspective when plant-based protein or other nutrients are gaining huge popularity