Abstract

Background

   Maize has many kernel colors, from white to dark black. However,
   research on the color and nutritional quality of the different
   varieties is limited. The color of the maize grain is an important
   characteristic. Colored maize is rich in nutrients, which have received
   attention for their role in diet-related chronic diseases and have
   different degrees of anti-stress protection for animal and human
   health.

Methods

   A comprehensive metabolome (LC-MS/MS) and transcriptome analysis was
   performed in this study to compare different colored maize varieties
   from the perspective of multiple recombination in order to study the
   nutritional value of maize with different colors and the molecular
   mechanism of color formation.

Results

   Maize kernels with diverse colors contain different types of
   health-promoting compounds, highlighting that different maize varieties
   can be used as functional foods according to human needs. Among them,
   red-purple and purple-black maize contain more flavonoids than white
   and yellow kernels. Purple-black kernels have a high content of amino
   acids and nucleotides, while red-purple kernels significantly
   accumulate sugar alcohols and lipids.

Conclusion

   Our study can provide insights for improving people’s diets and provide
   a theoretical basis for the study of food structure for chronic
   diseases.

Supplementary Information

   The online version contains supplementary material available at
   10.1186/s12864-023-09272-x.

   Keywords: Maize, Metabolomics, Kernel color, Nutritional quality,
   RNA-seq

Background

   Maize, or corn (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important cereal crops
   in the world [[43]1]. Color formation is an important part of maize
   kernel development, and yellow kernels are the dominant maize planted
   in the world [[44]2]. Colored maize has received attention due to its
   role in diet-related chronic diseases [[45]3]. Therefore, the market
   has different positioning demands for different colors of maize, which
   can be processed into different products [[46]4]. Preferences for