Metabolic engineering of bread wheat improves grain iron concentration and bioavailability.
Jesse T BeasleyJulien P BonneauJose T Sánchez-PalaciosLaura T Moreno-MoyanoDamien L CallahanElad TakoRaymond P GlahnEnzo LombiAlexander Arthur Theodore JohnsonPublished in: Plant biotechnology journal (2019)
Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is cultivated on more land than any other crop and produces a fifth of the calories consumed by humans. Wheat endosperm is rich in starch yet contains low concentrations of dietary iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn). Biofortification is a micronutrient intervention aimed at increasing the density and bioavailability of essential vitamins and minerals in staple crops; Fe biofortification of wheat has proved challenging. In this study we employed constitutive expression (CE) of the rice (Oryza sativa L.) nicotianamine synthase 2 (OsNAS2) gene in bread wheat to up-regulate biosynthesis of two low molecular weight metal chelators - nicotianamine (NA) and 2'-deoxymugineic acid (DMA) - that play key roles in metal transport and nutrition. The CE-OsNAS2 plants accumulated higher concentrations of grain Fe, Zn, NA and DMA and synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) revealed enhanced localization of Fe and Zn in endosperm and crease tissues, respectively. Iron bioavailability was increased in white flour milled from field-grown CE-OsNAS2 grain and positively correlated with NA and DMA concentrations.
Keyphrases
- heavy metals
- energy transfer
- climate change
- high resolution
- metal organic framework
- gene expression
- physical activity
- poor prognosis
- magnetic resonance imaging
- magnetic resonance
- computed tomography
- high throughput
- aqueous solution
- copy number
- single cell
- risk assessment
- visible light
- genome wide
- binding protein
- lactic acid