~ 1484 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2019; 7(1): 1484-1494 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 IJCS 2019; 7(1): 1484-1494 © 2019 IJCS Received: 14-11-2018 Accepted: 18-12-2018 Saurabh Singh Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India SS Dey Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India Raj Kumar ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Regional Station, Katrain, Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India Reeta Bhatia Division of Floriculture and Landscaping, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India Hemant Ghemeray Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India TK Behera Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India Correspondence Saurabh Singh Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India Genetic analysis and interaction among CUPRAC, FRAP, phytochemical and phenotypic traits in cauliflower ( Brassica oleracea var. botrytis L.) Saurabh Singh, SS Dey, Raj Kumar, Reeta Bhatia, Hemant Ghemeray and TK Behera Abstract The lack of information regarding genetic variability and inter-relationships among antioxidant and phytochemical, phenotypic traits in snowball cauliflower evoked an experiment using 26 Ogura based cytoplasmic male-sterile (CMS) and doubled haploid (DH) lines to formulate breeding strategies for the development of antioxidant rich cultivars. Significant variability was observed for all the antioxidant traits suggesting the scope for improvement of these antioxidant traits in cauliflower. The cluster analysis revealed five different groups of parental lines based on phytochemical traits. The slightly higher magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the antioxidant traits indicated small influence of environment on accumulation of these traits. The high heritability (>80%) accompanied with high genetic gain for the accumulation of antioxidant traits indicated the predominance of additive gene action. This study will pave the way for mapping of QTLs and breeding of bio fortified cultivars in cauliflower. Keywords: antioxidant capacity, cauliflower, phytochemicals, genetic variability, heritability, correlation Introduction Antioxidant compounds are widespread in the plant kingdom including fruits and vegetable crops, and they play a significant role in plants and human health. The discovery and subsequently the isolation of vitamin C evoked the interest in antioxidant activity and their extraction from plants (Kasote et al., 2015) [17] . The root cause for the incidence of life threatening diseases (such as cardiovascular diseases, various types of cancer and age related disease) is the oxidative stress attributed to imbalance between generation and accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) like superoxide radicals (O 2 - ), hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), hydroxyl radical, singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ) and ROS detoxification ability of a biological system (Li et al., 2014; Kasote et al., 2015) [17, 18] . Antioxidant compounds have been proved effective to significantly delay or prevent the oxidative stresses caused by these ROS products and thus, impart human health benefits (Li et al., 2014) [18] . Vegetable crops are potential source of important nutraceutical and antioxidant compounds including various vitamins and minerals, thus they are regarded as protective foods (Singh and Devi, 2015; Singh et al., 2018) [31, 32] . Brassica oleracea comprises diverse group of vegetables (cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprout, kale, knoll khol, broccoli) commonly known as cole crops and are important part of dietary food. They are regarded as ‘super-food’ owing to their health promoting properties, as they are rich source of antioxidant phytochemicals, minerals and secondary metabolites such as selenium, glucosinolates, sulphoraphane, carotenoids, phenolic compounds, anthocyanins and vitamins A, C, E and K (Soengas et al., 2012; Sotelo et al., 2014; Dey et al., 2015; Singh et al., 2018; Samec et al., 2018) [37, 38, 10, 32, 24] . The high intake of Brassica vegetables has been associated with reducing the risk of age related chronic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and various types of cancer (Soengas et al., 2012; Ciska et al., 2015; Singh et al., 2018) [37, 8, 32] . The dietary phytochemicals, such as indole-3-carbinol, sulforaphane, present in Brasssica vegetables have been associated with reduction of breast cancer by targeting the miRNAs involved in induction of breast cancer (Sayeed et al., 2017) [25] . Anthocyanins are natural pigments, imparting red, purple, blue color to fruit and vegetable parts, and belong to the group of flavonoids having antioxidant, anti-inflammatory activity (Mizgier et al., 2016; Hodaei et al., 2017) [19, 16] .