Abstract
One out of three humans suffer from micronutrient deficiencies called “hidden hunger”. Underprivileged people, including preschool children and women, suffer most from deficiency diseases and other health-related issues. Rice (Oryza sativa), a staple food, is their source of nutrients, contributing up to 70% of daily calories for more than half of the world’s population. Solving “hidden hunger” through rice biofortification would be a sustainable approach for those people who mainly consume rice and have limited access to diversified food. White milled rice grains lose essential nutrients through polishing. Therefore, seed-specific higher accumulation of essential nutrients is a necessity. Through the method of biofortification (via genetic engineering/molecular breeding), significant increases in iron and zinc with other essential minerals and provitamin-A (β-carotene) was achieved in rice grain. Many indica and japonica rice cultivars have been biofortified worldwide, being popularly known as ‘high iron rice’, ‘low phytate rice’, ‘high zinc rice’, and ‘high carotenoid rice’ (golden rice) varieties. Market availability of such varieties could reduce “hidden hunger”, and a large population of the world could be cured from iron deficiency anemia (IDA), zinc deficiency, and vitamin-A deficiency (VAD). In this review, different approaches of rice biofortification with their outcomes have been elaborated and discussed. Future strategies of nutrition improvement using genome editing (CRISPR/Cas9) and the need of policy support have been highlighted.
Highlights
A quick meal may satisfy hunger, but there is a deeper problem of “hidden hunger” which is only fulfilled by nutritionally enriched food
In terms of the long term effect of RNAi-mediated silencing of the phytic acid pathway, ferritin overexpression in rice plants for development of ‘high iron’ rice has been studied via phenotypic overexpression in rice plants for development of ‘high iron’ rice has been studied via phenotypic and and agronomic performance data under the facilities of the University of Calcutta, India (Figure 5a)
As technological improvement of plant genetic modification is a dynamic process, increasing detailed knowledge of rice genome sequencing data will lead to more valuable biofortified rice in the future
Summary
A quick meal may satisfy hunger, but there is a deeper problem of “hidden hunger” which is only fulfilled by nutritionally enriched food. Biofortified (including bioengineered) staple food crops is a sustainable alternative that can be highly beneficial (including staple foodtocrops is dietary a sustainable alternative that can be highly beneficial for for people bioengineered) who have limited access varied resources. (from 19vitamins, to 4 ppm), zincproteins, by 1.83 times (33 to 18 ppm), along with other ppm), 8.8 along other minerals, fats, and fibers [5,6,7] These amounts of reduction in minerals amounts of reduction in minerals may vary among the rice cultivars and the grain milling processes. Biofortification process to to increase increase the the micronutrients micronutrients in food crops including rice. Under rice biofortification research projects for maintaining, and introducing micronutrients rice grain, different approaches have beenapproaches strategized worldwide.
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