Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-31T03:15:05.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Biofortification of essential nutritional compounds and trace elements in rice and cassava

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2007

C. Sautter ,
S. Poletti ,
P. Zhang  and
W. Gruissem
C. Sautter*
Affiliation:
Institute of Plant Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Universitaetsstr. 2 CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland
S. Poletti
Affiliation:
Institute of Plant Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Universitaetsstr. 2 CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland
P. Zhang
Affiliation:
Institute of Plant Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Universitaetsstr. 2 CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland
W. Gruissem
Affiliation:
Institute of Plant Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Universitaetsstr. 2 CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author: Christof Sautter, fax +41 44 6321044, email [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Plant biotechnology can make important contributions to food security and nutritional improvement. For example, the development of ‘Golden Rice’ by Professor Ingo Potrykus was a milestone in the application of gene technology to deliver both increased nutritional qualities and health improvement to wide sections of the human population. Mineral nutrient and protein deficiency as well as food security remain the most important challenges for developing countries. Current projects are addressing these issues in two major staple crops, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and rice. The tropical root crop cassava is a major source of food for approximately 600 million of the population worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa >200 million of the population rely on cassava as their major source of dietary energy. The nutritional quality of the cassava root is not sufficient to meet all dietary needs. Rice is the staple food for half the world population, providing approximately 20% of the per capita energy and 13% of the protein for human consumption worldwide. In many developing countries the dietary contributions of rice are substantially greater (29·3% dietary energy and 29·1% dietary protein). The current six most popular ‘mega’ rice varieties (in terms of popularity and acreage), including Chinese hybrid rice, have an incomplete amino acid profile and contain limited amounts of essential micronutrients. Rice lines with improved Fe contents have been developed using genes that have functions in Fe absorption, translocation and accumulation in the plant, as well as improved Fe bioavailability in the human intestine. Current developments in biotechnology-assisted plant improvement are reviewed and the potential of the technology in addressing human nutrition and health are discussed.

Keywords

BiofortificationRiceCassava
Type
Symposium on ‘Enhancing the nutritional value of plant foods’
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 153 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2006

References

Black, MM (2003) Micronutrient deficiencies and cognitive functioning. Journal of Nutrition 133 3927S–3931S.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boccio, JR Lyengar, V (2003) Iron deficiency – Causes, consequences, and strategies to overcome this nutritional problem Biological Trace Elements Research 94 1–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burkhardt, P Beyer, P Wünn, J Klöti, A Armstrong, GA Schledz, M von Lintig, J Potrykus, I (1997) Transgenic rice (Oryza sativa) endosperm expressing daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) phytoene synthase accumulates phytoene, a key intermediate of provitamin A biosynthesis Plant Journal 11 1071–1078.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cakmak, I (2002) Plant nutrition research: Priorities to meet human needs for food in sustainable ways Plant and Soil 247 2–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawe, D Robertson, R Unnevehr, L (2002) Golden rice: what role could it play in alleviation of vitamin A deficiency? Food Policy 27 541–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Díaz de la Garza, R Quinlivan, EP Klaus, SMJ Basset, GJC, Gregory, JF III Hanson, AD (2004) Folate biofortification in tomatoes by engineering the pteridine branch of folate synthesis Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101 13720–13725.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eichholzer, M (2003) Micronutrient deficiencies in Switzerland: causes and consequences. Journal of Food Engineering 56 171–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Food and Agriculture Organization (2004) State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
García-Casal, MN Layrisse, M Peña-Rosas, JP Ramírez, J Leets, I, Matus, P (2003) Iron absorption from elemental iron-fortified corn flakes in humans. Role of vitamins A and C1–3 Nutrition Research 23 451–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goto, F Yoshihara, T Shigemoto, N, Toki, S Takaiwa, F (1999) Iron fortification of rice seed by the soybean ferritine gene Nature Biotechnology 17 282–286.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graham, RD Senadhira, D Beebe, S, Iglesias, C Monasterio, I (1999) Breeding for micronutrient density in edible portions of staple food crops: conventional approaches Field Crop Research 60 57–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, ND Upadhyaya, N Tabe, LM Higgins, TJV (2003) The redistribution of protein sulfur in transgenic rice expressing a gene for a foreign, sulfur-rich protein Plant Journal 34 1–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanson, AD Gregory, JF (2002) Synthesis and turnover of folates in plants Current Opinion in Plant Biology 5 244–249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herrmann, RG, Westhoff, P & Link, G (1992) Biogenesis of plastids in higher plants. In Advances in Plant Gene Research. vol. 6, Cell Organelles, pp. 276–349 [Herrmann, RG, editor]. Berlin: Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
Hofius, D Sonnewald, U (2003) Vitamin E biosynthesis: biochemistry meets cell biology Trends in Plant Science 8 6–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hossain, T Rosenberg, I Selhub, J, Kishore, G Beachy, R & Schubert, K (2004) Enhancement of folates in plants through metabolic engineering Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101 5158–5163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kanwischer, M Porfirova, S Bergmüller, E Dörmann, P (2005) Alterations in tocopherol cyclase activity in transgenic and mutant plants of arabidopsis affect tocopherol content, tocopherol composition, and oxidative stress Plant Physiology 137 713–723.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, TM Fitzpatrick-McElligott S (1993) Particle bombardment: a universal approach for gene transfer to cells and tissues Current Opinion in Biotechnology 4 583–590.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kryder, RD, Kowalski, SP & Krattiger, AF (2000) The Intellectual and Technical Property Components of Pro-vitamin A Rice (Golden RiceTM): A Preliminary Freedom-to-operate Review. ISAAA Briefs no. 20. Ithaca, NY: ISAAA.Google Scholar
Lai, J Messing, J (2003) Increasing maize seed methionine by mRNA stability Plant Journal 4 395–402.Google Scholar
Leonard, SW Good, CK Gugger, ET & Traber, MG (2004) Vitamin E bioavailability from fortified breakfast cereal is greater than that from encapsulated supplements American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79 86–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lucca, P Hurrell, RF Potrykus, I (2002) Fighting iron deficiency anemia with iron-rich rice. Journal of the American College of Nutrition 21, Suppl. 184S–190S.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paine, JA Shipton, CA Chaggar, S Howells, RM Kennedy, MJ, Vernon, G Wright, SY Hinchliffe, E Adams, JL Silverstone, AL, Drake, R (2005) Improving the nutritional value of Golden Rice through increased pro-vitamin A content Nature Biotechnology 23 482–487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pirie, A (1983) Vitamin A deficiency and child blindness in the developing world Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 42 53–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poletti, S Gruissem, W Sautter, C (2004) The nutritional fortification of cereals Current Opinion in Biotechnology 15 162–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poletti, S Sautter, C (2005) Biofortification of the crops with micronutrients using plant breeding and/or transgenic strategies Minerva Biotecnologica 17 1–11.Google Scholar
Potrykus, I, Bilang, R, Fütterer, J, Sautter, C, Schrott, M & Span-genberg, G (1995) Gene transfer to plants. In Agricultural Biotechnology: Principles and Practices. Crop Improvement, pp. 119–160 [Altman, A, editor]. New York: Marcel Decker.Google Scholar
Ramesh, SA Choimes, S Schachtman, DP (2004) Over-expression of an Arabidopsis zinc transporter in Hordeum vulgare increases short term zinc uptake after zinc deprivation and seed zinc content Plant Molecular Biology 54 373–385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sattler, SE Cheng, Z DellaPenna D (2004) From Arabidopsis to agriculture: engineering improved vitamin E content in soybean Trends in Plant Science 9 365–367.Google ScholarPubMed
Shrestha, AK Arcot, J Paterson, JL (2003) Edible coating materials – their properties and use in the fortification of rice with folic acid Food Research International 36 921–928.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, RT Purcell, LC Sneller, CH (2004) Crop transformation and the challenge to increase yield potential Trends in Plant Science 9 70–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sommer, A (1989) Large dose vitamin A to control vitamin A deficiency. In Elevated Dosages of Vitamins: Benefits and Hazards, pp. 37–41 [Walter, P, Brubacher, GB and Stähelin, H, editors]. Toronto, Ont.: Hans Huber Publishers.Google Scholar
Takahashi, M (2003) Overcoming Fe deficiency by transgenic approach in rice Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture 72 211–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Briel, T Webb, P (2003) Fighting world hunger through micronutrient fortification programs Food Technology 57 44–47.Google Scholar
Vasconcelos, M Datta, K Oliva, N, Khalekuzzaman, M Torrizo, L, Krishnan, S Olivera, M, Goto, F Datta, SK (2003) Enhanced iron and zinc accumulation in transgenic rice with the ferritin gene Plant Science 164 371–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welch, RM Graham, RD (2004) Breeding for micronutrients in staple food crops from a human nutrition perspective. Journal of Experimental Botany 55 353–364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Carrot Museum (2005) Discover the world of carrots. http://www.carrotmuseum.co.ukGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization (2002) The World Health Report 2002 – Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Wu, XR Chen, ZH Folk, WR (2003) Enrichment of cereal protein lysine content by altered tDNA lys coding during protein synthesis Plant Biotechnology Journal 1 187–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, X Al-Babili, S Klöti, A Zhang, J Lucca, P, Beyer, P Potrykus, I (2000) Engineering the provitamin A (β-carotene) biosynthetic pathway into (carotenoid-free) rice endosperm Science 287 303–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhang, P Bohl-Zenger, S Puonti-Kaerlas, J Potrykus, I Gruissem, W (2003) Two cassava promoters related to vascular expression and storage root formation Planta 218 192–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zimmermann, MB Hurrell, R (2002) Improving iron, zinc and vitamin A nutrition through plant biotechnology Current Opinion in Biotechnology 13 142–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zimmermann, R & Qaim, M (2002) Projecting the Benefits of Golden Rice in the Philippines. ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy no. 51. Bonn, Germany: ZEF.Google Scholar