Biotechnological Advances in Cumin (Cuminum cyminum)

Cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.), a commercially and pharmaceutically important spice crop, belongs to the Apiaceae family. It is predominantly cultivated in Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Morocco, Iran, Greece, Syria, and Turkey. Cumin seeds are utilized in the preparation of food recipes and nonalcoholic drinks and as ingredients of traditional medicine and fragrance material. Mature ripened seeds of cumin have essential oil with several antioxidants and bioactive compounds. Despite its high importance as a key seed spice, cumin production and adaptation suffer from various inherent problems. Poor germination and weaker establishment of seedlings are the foremost problems faced in cumin cultivation. Moreover, genetic variability in existing germplasm collections is very limited which adversely impacts cumin breeding. Resistance against climatic stresses and plant pathogens causing Alternaria blight and Fusarium wilt diseases is not available in existing cumin accessions, and it poses a serious concern among the breeders. Small and slender flowers restrict the opportunities for artificial pollination; consequently, hybrid breeding in cumin is inadequate. Therefore, most of the cultivated cumin varieties existing at present are made through selection-based conventional breeding practices. Some efforts have been made to discover high-value bioactive molecules in cumin and authenticate their pharmacological properties. Limited genomic resources have been developed in cumin species that restrict the use of cutting-edge genomic tools to enhance the pace of conventional breeding programs. In this chapter, we highlight the attempts made to research cumin, focusing on a variety of topics, including seed biochemical components, mutation breeding, divergence analysis, plant regeneration, and molecular and omics studies.