Abstract
BackgroundAnemia is thought to affect up to 1.6 billion people worldwide. One of the major contributors to low iron (Fe) absorption is a higher proportion of cereals compared to meats and pulse crops in people’s diets. This has now become a problem in both the developed and developing world, as a result of both modern food choice and food availability. Bread wheat accounts for 20 % of the calories consumed by humans and is an important source of protein, vitamins and minerals meaning it could be a major vehicle for bringing more bioavailable Fe into the diet.ResultsTo investigate whether breeding for higher concentrations of Fe in wheat grains could help increase Fe absorption, a multiparent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population, encompassing more than 80 % of UK wheat polymorphism, was grown over two seasons in the UK. The population was phenotyped for both Fe concentration and Fe bioavailability using an established Caco-2 cell bioassay. It was found that increasing Fe concentrations in the grains was not correlated with higher Fe bioavailability and that the underlying genetic regions controlling grain Fe concentrations do not co-localise with increased Fe absorption. Furthermore, we show that phytate concentrations do not correlate with Fe bioavailability in our wheat population and thus phytate-binding is insufficient to explain the lack of correlation between Fe bioavailability and Fe concentrations in the wheat grain. Finally, we observed no (Fe bioavailability) or low (Fe concentration) correlation between years for these traits, confirming that both are under strong environmental influence.ConclusionsThis suggests that breeders will have to select not only for Fe concentrations directly in grains, but also increased bioavailability. However the use of numerous controls and replicated trials limits the practicality of adoption of screening by Caco-2 cells by many breeders.
Highlights
Iron (Fe) deficiency in humans, known as anemia, is estimated to effect more than 1.6 billion people worldwide with major implications for many aspects of human health [1]
Field experiment Seed were sampled from 1100 multiparent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) recombinant inbred lines grown in randomised 1m2 nursery plots during the 2015–2016 (“year 1”) and 2016–2017 (“year 2”) field seasons at the NIAB experimental farm in Cambridge, UK, using the agronomy package detailed in Suppl
We conclude that there is a high level of Genotype x Environment (GxE) interaction for Fe concentrations in the grain, which may have had an impact on the success of breeding for increased Fe concentration [11, 40, 42, 47, 48], despite the evidence of underlying quantitative trait loci (QTL) variation in a number of important cereal species [11, 16, 42, 47, 49, 50]
Summary
Iron (Fe) deficiency in humans, known as anemia, is estimated to effect more than 1.6 billion people worldwide with major implications for many aspects of human health [1]. In places where people’s diet is largely cerealbased, anemia is prevalent, mainly due to the low bioavailability of the Fe in cereals relative to diverse Fe. Wright et al BMC Plant Biology (2021) 21:212 level of Fe > 1.65 mg/100 g of flour. One of the major contributors to low iron (Fe) absorption is a higher proportion of cereals compared to meats and pulse crops in people’s diets. This has become a problem in both the developed and developing world, as a result of both modern food choice and food availability. Bread wheat accounts for 20 % of the calories consumed by humans and is an important source of protein, vitamins and minerals meaning it could be a major vehicle for bringing more bioavailable Fe into the diet
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