Carotenoids biofortification of sweet potatoes

In the last two decades, crops biofortification can be considered as the most powerful biotechnological approach to enhance the phytonutrient content of crops, and thus increasing dietary intake of vitamins, and other nutrients as well, alleviating nutritional deficiencies. This chapter describes approaches to enhancing carotenoids of the sweet potato. One of the most interesting nutritional qualities of sweet potato is its content in ß-carotene (pro-vitamin A). Most of these high carotenoid values have been reported in the orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties. The genetic diversity of sweet potatoes is a critical trait for its improvement because this diversity constitutes the primary source of the specific genes for the desired genetic gains. Therefore, using this genetic diversity is helping to breed enhanced sweet potatoes with targeted nutritional quality attributes as a functional food crop. The chapter also discusses agronomic strategies, breeding strategies, and transgenic strategies.