Brassica napus is an important crop for edible oil, vegetables, biofuel, and animal food. It is also an ornamental crop for its various petal colors. Flavonoids are a group of secondary metabolites with antioxidant activities and medicinal values, and are important to plant pigmentation, disease resistance, and abiotic stress responses. The yellow seed coat, purple leaf and inflorescence, and colorful petals of B. napus have been bred for improved nutritional value, tourism and city ornamentation. The putative loci and genes regulating flavonoid biosynthesis in B. napus have been identified using germplasms with various seed, petal, leaf, and stem colors, or different flavonoid contents under stress conditions. This review introduces the advances of flavonoid profiling, biosynthesis, and regulation during development and stress responses of B. napus, and hopes to help with the breeding of B. napus with better quality, ornamental value, and stress resistances.
Keywords: Brassica napus; flavonoid; plant development; regulation; stress response.