Vegetable legumes are an essential source of carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, along with health-promoting bioactive chemicals. The demand for the use of either fresh or processed vegetable legumes is continually expanding on account of the growing consumer awareness about their well-balanced diet. Therefore, sustaining optimum yields of vegetable legumes is extremely important. Here we seek to present d etails of prospects of underexploited vegetable legumes for food availability, accessibility, and improved livelihood utilization. So far research attention was mainly focused on pulse legumes\' performance as compared to vegetable legumes. Wild and cultivated vegetable legumes vary morphologically across diverse habitats. This could make them less known, underutilized, and underexploited, and make them a promising potential nutritional source in developing nations where malnutrition still exists. Research efforts are required to promote underexploited vegetable legumes, for improving their use to feed the ever-increasing population in the future. In view of all the above points, here we have discussed underexploited vegetable legumes with tremendous potential; namely, vegetable pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba), winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), dolichos bean (Lablab purpureus), and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), thereby covering the progress related to various aspects such as pre-breeding, molecular markers, quantitative trait locus (QTLs), genomics, and genetic engineering. Overall, this review has summarized the information related to advancements in the breeding of vegetable legumes which will ultimately help in ensuring food and nutritional security in developing nations.

Currently, heavy metal pollution becomes a severe problem whole over the world, and these toxic metals enter into the environment either by natural phenomena or due to extensive industrialization. The discharged effluents containing toxic heavy metals mixed with soil/water and change their natural composition. These heavy metals have adverse effects on living beings and cause damage to the vital body organs of animals as well as humans. The heavy metal pollution also inhibits the biodegradation of the chlorinated organic compounds (another type of environmental pollution) by interacting with metabolizing enzymes and inhibits their functioning. Earlier studies described that heavy metals cannot be fully removed from the environment, but they can be effectively neutralized or transformed into less toxic form so that their harmful effect on the environment can be reduced. The distinctive enzymatic apparatus within microbial system plays a major role in the transformation of heavy metals in the environment. A considerable advancement has been made during recent years to transform the heavy metals by utilizing the bioremediation potential of genetically engineered (GE) microorganisms. These transgenics are very much efficient in heavy metal transformations and still, we have to discover more to additionally utilize their full biotransformation potential.In the present review article, the detailed description of the adverse effects of four heavy metals (arsenic, lead, mercury, and chromium) and their adverse effect on our environment and human beings is discussed. Furthermore, the use of microorganisms/GE organisms for the bioremediation of heavy metals from the environment is also discussed along with their detailed bioremediation mechanism.

The New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Modification was directed to investigate the strategic options available to address the use of genetically modified organisms and products. The Commission spent 14 months hearing submissions in public meetings and formal hearings. Over 10,000 written public submissions were received. Most were against any use of the technology in food, and many were angry at the lack of product labelling and therefore choice. Few were supportive, although there was little objection to the use of genetic technology or modified organisms in containment, especially for medical research. Many New Zealanders had strong spiritual objections to the creation of transgenic animals containing human DNA, which they described as \"playing God\" or \"interfering with Nature\". Many expressed lack of trust in scientists and biotechnology companies. Despite these views, the Commission concluded that New Zealand should keep its options open and proceed carefully, minimising and managing risks. The Commission recommended that Government establish a Bioethics Council to act as a transparent advisory body and prepare guidelines on biotechnology, enabling public education and participation in decision-making.

This article gives an overview of high-cell-density cultures for polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production and their modes of operation for increasing productivity. High cell densities are very important in PHA production mainly because this polymer is an intracellular product accumulated in various microorganisms, so a high cellular content is needed for the polymer production. This review describes relevant results from fed-batch, repeated batch, and continuous modes of operation without and with cell recycle for the production of these polymers by microorganisms. Finally, recombinant microorganisms for PHA production, as well future directions for PHA production, are discussed.

Methionine is an essential amino acid for animals and is typically considered one of the first limiting amino acids in animal feed formulations. Methionine deficiency or excess in animal diets can lead to sub-optimal animal performance and increased environmental pollution, which necessitates its accurate quantification and proper dosage in animal rations. Animal bioassays are the current industry standard to quantify methionine bioavailability. However, animal-based assays are not only time consuming, but expensive and are becoming more scrutinized by governmental regulations. In addition, a variety of artifacts can hinder the variability and time efficacy of these assays. Microbiological assays, which are based on a microbial response to external supplementation of a particular nutrient such as methionine, appear to be attractive potential alternatives to the already established standards. They are rapid and inexpensive in vitro assays which are characterized with relatively accurate and consistent estimation of digestible methionine in feeds and feed ingredients. The current review discusses the potential to develop Escherichia coli-based microbial biosensors for methionine bioavailability quantification. Methionine biosynthesis and regulation pathways are overviewed in relation to genetic manipulation required for the generation of a respective methionine auxotroph that could be practical for a routine bioassay. A prospective utilization of Escherichia coli methionine biosensor would allow for inexpensive and rapid methionine quantification and ultimately enable timely assessment of nutritional profiles of feedstuffs.

This paper provides an overview of the recent advances and trends in research in the biological production of hydrogen (biohydrogen). Hydrogen from both fossil and renewable biomass resources is a sustainable source of energy that is not limited and of different applications. The most commonly used techniques of biohydrogen production, including direct biophotolysis, indirect biophotolysis, photo-fermentation and dark-fermentation, conventional or \"modern\" techniques are examined in this review. The main limitations inherent to biochemical reactions for hydrogen production and design are the constraints in reactor configuration which influence biohydrogen production, and these have been identified. Thereafter, physical pretreatments, modifications in the design of reactors, and biochemical and genetic manipulation techniques that are being developed to enhance the overall rates and yields of biohydrogen generation are revisited.

Microalgae represent the \'best of both worlds\', combining the high growth rate and ease of cultivation of microorganisms with the ability to perform post-transcriptional and post-translational modifications of plants. The development of economically viable microalgal expression systems is, however, hindered by low recombinant protein yields. Although there are still many obstacles to overcome before microalgae become standard expression systems, considerable progress has been made in recent years in regards to elucidating the causes for these low yields and in the development of strategies to improve them. Transgenes have successfully been expressed in both nuclear and chloroplast microalgal genomes, although at economically viable levels only in the latter. The present review describes recent progress in genetic manipulation of microalgae, outlines strategies to increase protein yields and presents some interesting avenues of research that remain to be explored.

Agarases are the enzymes which catalyze the hydrolysis of agar. They are classified into alpha-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.158) and beta-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.81) according to the cleavage pattern. Several agarases have been isolated from different genera of bacteria found in seawater and marine sediments, as well as engineered microorganisms. Agarases have wide applications in food industry, cosmetics, and medical fields because they produce oligosaccharides with remarkable activities. They are also used as a tool enzyme for biological, physiological, and cytological studies. The paper reviews the category, source, purification method, major characteristics, and application fields of these native and gene cloned agarases in the past, present, and future.

The utilization of chemometric methods in the quantitative and qualitative analysis of feeds, foods, medicine and so on has been accompanied with the great evolution in the progress and in the near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Hence, recently the application of NIR spectroscopy has extended on the context of genetics and transgenic products. The aim of this review was to investigate the application of NIR spectroscopy to identificate transgenic products and to compare it with the traditional methods. The results of copious researches showed that the application of NIRS technology was successful to distinguish transgenic foods and it has advantages such as fast, avoiding time-consuming, non-destructive and low cost in relation to the antecedent methods such as PCR and ELISA.

Recent data on the synthesis and hydrolysis of flavin nucleotides in yeast and bacteria and the regulation of this process are summarized. Specific examples are provided and the prospects of the use of genetically modified microorganisms for the industrial manufacturing of flavin mononucleotide and flavin dinucleotide are considered.