The Selection Of High Folate Contents Sweet Corn Germplasms And The Relavent Product Development

Folates are vitamins that are essential to human body.Folate deficiency could cause neural tube defects and megaloblastic anemia and it is also found to be related with various kinds of cardiovascular diseases.Sweet corn is a healthy crop with charateristics from both fruits and vegetables,and it could be predicted that biofortification of folates in this produce would be welcomed by vast consumer groups,which is also a good way to improve the folate level among the populations.In this paper,we determined the folate contents in over 200 sweet corn germplasms in two different years with different farming locations,establishing a database concerning to folate contents in sweet corn germplasms.The results indicated that most samples have folate levels ranging from 40 to 60 ?g/100 g FW,with the highest over 100 ?g/100 g FW.However,the influence of environment to this charateristics is huge.Next,we identified 3 SNPs that are related to folate phenotypes of sweet corn germplasms through genome-wide association study(GWAS).We also studied the genes locating near these SNPs and speculated that genes affecting folate phenotypes in sweet corn germplasms might not come from those pathways related to folate biosynthesis and metabolism.Nevertheless,we still hold the view that genes coming from these pathways would play an important role in regulating folate levels in sweet corn.Therefore,we conducted two experiments,using sweet corn kernels and sweet corn sprouts,to test our speculation.We found that folate levels decreased during the kernel(with minimum at DAP 25)and sprout development(with maximum at germinal stage),and noticeably,the changing patterns of the related expression levels of two genes(DHNA and GTPCH)from petrin pathway show high consistency to that of folate contents during growing periods respectively,exhibiting their dominant roles in regulating the levels of folates in sweet corn.In addition,the relative expression levels of ADCS from p ABA pathway were obviously affected by illumination,but its perfromace did not show any influence on folate contents.Finally,to investigate the performance of folates in sweet corn kernels during thermal processing,we carried out an experiment to design a kind of fresh-made sweet corn juice with high folate contents as well as good sensory charateristics discovering that contact with heating medium like water is the main reason for folate loss during the sweet corn processing.Therefore,kernels processed with boiling water for 5 min,and then juiced with supplemented hot water can make an ideal product.