Red Beet: An Overview

Research on red beet has increased rapidly in the last decade owing to the presence of brightly colored water-soluble pigments complemented by its richness of antioxidants, neuro-stimulators and strong anti-hypertensive and anti-cancer effects. Apart from their increasing traditional applications in food and pharmaceutical products, betalains have found newer applications such as for developing solar cells and anti-ageing formulations. While the visible presence of vacuolar pigments has made the tissues of red beet a model system for studying several vacuole-related cellular physiologies, the material is ideal for developing color-extraction techniques and related engineering aspects. Although its derivative variety – the sugar beet – has attracted great attention because of its capacity to accumulate high sugar content, similar emphasis has never been placed on red beet. The modern knowledge and molecular techniques of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics have not been applied efficiently for improving existing nutraceuticals within the plant or for identifying hitherto unexplored biomolecules. The present chapter provides an overview of recent biotechnological research developments on red beet, highlighting the important research areas worth addressing in the near future.