A comparative review on the anti-nutritional factors of herbal tea concoctions and their reduction strategies.

Tea is an important beverage consumed worldwide. Of the different types of tea available, herbal tea is an important beverage consumed owing to its popularity as a drink and stress relieving factors, several different herbal concoctions made from seeds, leaves, or roots are currently consumed and sold as herbal teas. The herbal teas are not the usual tea but "tisanes." They are caffeine free and popular for their medicinal property or immune boosters. Herbal tea formulations are popularly sold and consumed by millions owing to their health benefits as they are rich in antioxidants and minerals. However, plants are also known to contain toxic and anti-nutritional factors. Anti-nutritional factors are known to interfere with the metabolic process and hamper the absorption of important nutrients in the body. These anti-nutritional factors include saponins, tannins, alkaloids, oxalates, lectins, goitrogens, cyanogens, and lethogens. These chemicals are known to have deleterious effects on human health. Therefore, it is important to understand and assess the merits and demerits before consumption. Also, several techniques are currently used to process and reduce the anti-nutrients in foods. This review is focused on comparing the contents of various anti-nutritional factors in some underutilized plants of North-East India used as herbal tea along with processing methods that can be used to reduce the level of these anti-nutrients.

CRISPR-Cas-Led Revolution in Diagnosis and Management of Emerging Plant Viruses: New Avenues Toward Food and Nutritional Security.

Plant viruses pose a serious threat to agricultural production systems worldwide. The world's population is expected to reach the 10-billion mark by 2057. Under the scenario of declining cultivable land and challenges posed by rapidly emerging and re-emerging plant pathogens, conventional strategies could not accomplish the target of keeping pace with increasing global food demand. Gene-editing techniques have recently come up as promising options to enable precise changes in genomes with greater efficiency to achieve the target of higher crop productivity. Of genome engineering tools, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins have gained much popularity, owing to their simplicity, reproducibility, and applicability in a wide range of species. Also, the application of different Cas proteins, such as Cas12a, Cas13a, and Cas9 nucleases, has enabled the development of more robust strategies for the engineering of antiviral mechanisms in many plant species. Recent studies have revealed the use of various CRISPR-Cas systems to either directly target a viral gene or modify a host genome to develop viral resistance in plants. This review provides a comprehensive record of the use of the CRISPR-Cas system in the development of antiviral resistance in plants and discusses its applications in the overall enhancement of productivity and nutritional landscape of cultivated plant species. Furthermore, the utility of this technique for the detection of various plant viruses could enable affordable and precise in-field or on-site detection. The futuristic potential of CRISPR-Cas technologies and possible challenges with their use and application are highlighted. Finally, the future of CRISPR-Cas in sustainable management of viral diseases, and its practical utility and regulatory guidelines in different parts of the globe are discussed systematically.