Mutation Breeding and Metabolomics Integration for Finger Millet Improvement: Toward Mechanism-Based Crop Enhancement
Abstract
Maltase Mutanda and Tariro Mafirakurewa
Finger millet is a climate-resilient cereal widely cultivated in Africa and Asia, valued for its high calcium, dietary fibre and essential amino acid content. However, its genetic improvement has lagged behind major cereals due to limited genetic variability and insufficient research investment. Mutation breeding has been widely used to generate novel genetic variation for crop improvement, while metabolomics enables comprehensive profiling of biochemical variation linked to phenotypic traits. These approaches have independently improved agronomic performance and nutritional quality while enabling identification of key metabolites and metabolic pathways linked to plant performance. However, their integration within a single experimental framework in finger millet remains unexplored, limiting linkage between induced genetic variation and functional biochemical traits and constraining precision breeding. This mini review summarizes current knowledge on mutation breeding and metabolomics in finger millet and proposes a conceptual framework for their integration in crop improvement. The complementary roles of induced mutagenesis in generating genetic diversity and metabolomics in capturing downstream biochemical responses are highlighted. Integration of these approaches offers opportunities for early selection of superior genotypes using metabolite-based markers and for improved understanding of trait expression. Key limitations include high analytical costs, limited metabolomic databases and lack of integrated datasets. Future research should prioritize multi-omics integration, advanced data analytics and metabolite-guided selection to accelerate development of improved finger millet varieties with enhanced agronomic and nutritional traits.