Maize Genomics and Genetics 2024, Vol.15, No.1, 18-26 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/mgg 19 1 Nutritional Quality Traits of Corn In today's world, as the population grows and living standards improve, the requirements for the nutritional value of food also increase. As one of the world's most important food crops, corn not only plays a key role in ensuring global food security, but the optimization of its nutritional components has also become a focus of research and breeding. The nutritional quality traits of corn, such as protein content, oil content, vitamin and mineral content, are directly related to its use value and market demand. These nutritional quality traits not only affect human health, but also have a significant impact on agricultural economy (Doebley et al., 2006). 1.1 Definition and classification The nutritional quality traits of corn mainly include protein content, oil content, vitamin and mineral content. Protein is an indispensable component of living organisms and is related to the construction and repair of cells. The content and quality of protein in corn directly affect its nutritional value as food and feed. Oil is not only an important source of energy, but also contains a variety of unsaturated fatty acids, which are beneficial to human health. Although the content of vitamins and minerals in corn is not high, they play an important role in maintaining normal physiological functions of the human body and promoting health. Therefore, increasing the content of these nutrients in corn is of great significance to improving its overall nutritional value (Gibbon and Larkins, 2005). 1.2 Impact of nutritional quality traits on health and economy The improvement of nutritional quality is directly related to consumers' health (Pixley et al., 2013). With the improvement of people's living standards, the nutritional demand for food is also increasing. Corn is a food crop with huge global consumption. Optimization of its nutritional components can effectively improve the nutritional intake of the population, especially in developing countries. Increasing the protein and vitamin content of corn (Dong et al., 2006) can help reduce The occurrence of malnutrition and related diseases. In addition, corn varieties rich in oil can provide the human body with more healthy fatty acids (Alrefai et al., 1995), such as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which have a positive effect on preventing cardiovascular diseases. From an economic perspective, improving the nutritional quality traits of corn is of great significance to both agricultural producers and the processing industry. Corn varieties with high nutritional value usually have higher market demand and better price advantages, which can directly increase farmers' income and promote sustainable development of agriculture. At the same time, for the food and feed processing industry, high-quality corn raw materials can enhance the market competitiveness of final products and meet consumer demand for healthy food. In addition, with the development of biotechnology, corn varieties enriched in specific nutrients can also be used as raw materials for functional foods or biological products, opening up new economic growth points. The nutritional quality traits of corn are not only related to human health, but also an important driving force for agricultural economic development. Through the advancement of scientific research and breeding technology, optimizing the nutritional composition of corn can improve human nutrition and health while ensuring global food security, and promote the economic development of the agriculture and food industries. Therefore, strengthening the research and improvement of corn nutritional quality traits is an important way to achieve dual security of food and health. 2 Overview of GWAS Technology Genome -wide association studies (GWAS) are a research method used to find associations between specific traits and genetic markers in multiple genome data. In recent years, GWAS has become an important tool in genetic research, especially in crop genetic improvement and the discovery of disease-related genes. 2.1 Basic principles of GWAS The basic principle of GWAS is to scan the entire genome to find the association between trait phenotype and genotype. This process usually involves the integrated analysis of large numbers of samples to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the research results. In GWAS, researchers examine thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) markers spread across an individual's genome. By comparing the frequency of SNPs in
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNQ==