Breeding for high grain Fe and Zn levels in cereals

Micronutrients are known to play an important role in the metabolism and physiological activities of the human body. Unfortunately, over three billion people in the world are malnourished. The development of crops with enhanced mineral concentration is one of the most sustainable and cost effective approaches for alleviating micronutrient malnutrition. This review focuses on the progress made in the genetic enhancement of element mineral concentration in crops through plant breeding strategies. Biofortification is considered as a suitable strategy of increasing the bioavailable concentrations of an element in edible portions of crop plants through traditional breeding practices or modern biotechnology to overcome the problem of micronutrient deficiencies. Therefore, the combination of conventional breeding with modern genetic engineering approaches and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis is important for developing crop cultivars with enhanced micronutrient concentrations to improve human health.