Abstract
Wheat, like many other staple cereals, contains low levels of the essential micronutrients iron and zinc. Up to two billion people worldwide suffer from iron and zinc deficiencies, particularly in regions with predominantly cereal-based diets. Although wheat flour is commonly fortified during processing, an attractive and more sustainable solution is biofortification, which requires developing new varieties of wheat with inherently higher iron and zinc content in their grains. Until now most studies aimed at increasing iron and zinc content in wheat grains have focused on discovering natural variation in progenitor or related species. However, recent developments in genomics and transformation have led to a step change in targeted research on wheat at a molecular level. We discuss promising approaches to improve iron and zinc content in wheat using knowledge gained in model grasses. We explore how the latest resources developed in wheat, including sequenced genomes and mutant populations, can be exploited for biofortification. We also highlight the key research and practical challenges that remain in improving iron and zinc content in wheat.
Highlights
All living organisms require essential mineral micronutrients to maintain metabolism and humans obtain these from their diet (Welch and Graham, 2004)
The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 25% of the world’s population suffers from anemia (WHO, 2008), and that Fedeficiency anemia led to the loss of over 46,000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2010 alone (Murray and Lopez, 2013)
An estimated 17.3% of people worldwide are at risk of inadequate Zn intake (Wessells and Brown, 2012) and Zn-deficiency leads to estimated annual deaths of 433,000 children under the age of five (WHO, 2009)
Summary
All living organisms require essential mineral micronutrients to maintain metabolism and humans obtain these from their diet (Welch and Graham, 2004). There are many possible strategies to improve micronutrient intake in the human diet including dietary diversification, mineral supplementation and post-harvest food fortification These strategies depend on continued investment and infrastructure, and current levels of post-harvest fortification of Fe are often inadequate (White and Broadley, 2009; Gomez-Galera et al, 2010; Hurrell et al, 2010). Biofortification circumvents these problems by improving the micronutrient content of the crops themselves by increasing mineral levels and bioavailability in the edible parts. Here we focus on how the dramatic increase in wheat genomic sequence availability combined with functional genomic approaches can be used to their fullest potential to engineer new varieties of wheat with improved Fe and Zn content
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