Abstract
Wheat blast disease caused by the Magnaporthe oryzae Triticum (MoT) pathotype exerts a significant impact on grain development, yield, and quality of the wheat. The aim of this study was to investigate morphological, physiological, biochemical, and nutritional properties of wheat cv. BARI Gom 24 under varying levels of blast disease severity in wheat spikes. Grain morphology, volume, weight, and germination of the infected grains were significantly affected by MoT. Biochemical traits specifically grain N, Ca, Mg, and Fe content significantly increased (up to threefold; p > 0.05), but organic carbon, Cu, Zn, B, and S content in wheat grains significantly decreased with increased severity of MoT infection. The grain crude protein content was about twofold higher (up to 18.5% in grain) in severely blast-infected grains compared to the uninfected wheat (9.7%). Analysis of other nutritional properties such as secondary metabolites revealed that total antioxidant activity, flavonoid, and carotenoid concentrations remarkably decreased (up to threefold) with increasing severity of blast infestation in wheat grain. Grain moisture, lipid, and ash content were slightly increased with the increase in blast severity. However, grain K and total phenolic concentration were increased at a certain level of blast infestation and then reduced with increase in MoT infestation.
Highlights
Wheat is the most important cereal crop in the world due to its widespread distribution and extensive use as food products (Barak et al, 2013)
We found an almost similar trend of change in the contents of nutritional and biochemical properties of grains of both wheat cultivars BARI Gom 24 and BARI Gom 26 affected by blast infestation indicating that the modulation of nutritional and biochemical contents in wheat grains infected by wheat blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae Triticum (MoT) demonstrated in this research is a general phenomenon
A detailed study of physical, physiological, biochemical, mineral, and nutritional properties of wheat grains affected by varying levels of blast infestation was carried out
Summary
Wheat is the most important cereal crop in the world due to its widespread distribution and extensive use as food products (Barak et al, 2013). Phenolics are concentrated in the outer layers, pericarp, aleurone, germ, and less in the endosperm of wheat grain (Maillard and Berset, 1995; Atanasova-Penichon et al, 2016). It neutralizes free radicals, decomposing peroxides, and quenching singlet oxygen (Valifard et al, 2014). Flavonoids are present in the leaf tissue of wheat in diversified form, but in grains, they are not diverse in nature (Cavaliere et al, 2005; Asenstorfer et al, 2006) Carotenoids are another group of phytochemicals contributing to pigments and play important roles in the human diet
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