Metabolic engineering for biofortification of lipophilic antioxidants in plants

Biofortification of Crop Plants

Metabolic engineering of osmoprotectant accumulation in plants.

Drought and salinity are among the worst scourges of agriculture. One effective mechanism to reduce damage from these stresses is the accumulation of high intracellular levels of osmoprotectant compounds. These compounds include proline, ectoine, betaines, polyols, and trehalose and have evolved in many different organisms. Since some crop plants have low levels of these osmoprotectants or none...

Folate biofortification in food plants.

Folate deficiency is a global health problem affecting many people in the developing and developed world. Current interventions (industrial food fortification and supplementation by folic acid pills) are effective if they can be used but might not be possible in less developed countries. Recent advances demonstrate that folate biofortification of food crops is now a feasible complementary strat...

Impact and interaction of lipophilic antioxidants in mutants and transgenic plants.

Carotenoids and tocopherols are lipophilic antioxidants with important functions in plants and humans. Due to their nutritional value and putative health benefits, they have become a focus of intensive research. The identification of all genes of the carotenoid and tocopherol biosynthesis has enabled the manipulation of their biosynthetic pathways, aiming for quantitative and qualitative improv...

The Effects of Lipophilic Antioxidants on the Affinity of LDL to Its Receptor: A Model for Prevention of Atherogenesis

The affinity of low density lipoprotein (LDL) to its receptor is very important, because most of LDL-uptake pathway is done by the LDL receptor and the change in size of LDL particle and the modification in its components may affects the LDL affinity for its receptor. In this study, the effects of lipophilic agents such as vitamin E and seven volatile oils: anethol, eugenol, geraniol, limonene,...