Folate deficiency is a significant global health issue that affects millions of people and causes severe adverse effects. Major staple crops, which provide amounts calories, often contain inadequate folate levels. Synthetic fortification has contributed to reduction in low-folate populations, but more sustainable solution needed. Biofortification, or the breeding crops naturally increase their ...

Agronomic biofortification, the application of fertilizer to increase micronutrient concentrations in staple food crops, has been increasingly promoted as a valuable approach alleviate deficiencies, but its success inevitably depends on farmers’ acceptance and adoption. By using iodine fertilizers case, this study aimed understand vegetable intentions adopt agronomic biofortification. Therefore...

The biofortification of lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus.) has the potential to provide adequate daily selenium (Se) to human diets. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine how low-dose Se fertilizer application at germination affects seedling biomass, antioxidant activity, and Se uptake of 26 cultivated lentil genotypes; and (2) quantify the seed Se concentration of 191 lentil wild ac...

IODINE IS A TRACE ELEMENT THAT IS FUNDAMENTAL FOR HUMAN HEALTH its deficiency affects about two billion people worldwide. Fruits and vegetables are usually poor sources of iodine; however, plants can accumulate iodine if it is either present or exogenously administered to the soil. The biofortification of crops with iodine has therefore been proposed as a strategy for improving human nutrition....

BACKGROUND The density of minerals and vitamins in food staples eaten widely by the poor may be increased either through conventional plant breeding or through the use of transgenic techniques, a process known as biofortification. OBJECTIVE HarvestPlus seeks to develop and distribute varieties of food staples (rice, wheat, maize, cassava, pearl millet, beans, and sweet potato) that are high i...

Modern breeding, molecular genetic and biotechnology studies frequently describe changes in plant metabolism to improve nutritional content; however, this is often where the process of assessing biofortification ends. Ideally, these modified plants need to be used in controlled animal and human feeding studies to assess nutritional impact. Such bioavailability studies are crucial if any claims ...

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...

Folate deficiency leads to neural tube defects and other human diseases, and is a global health problem. Because plants are major folate sources for humans, we have sought to enhance plant folate levels (biofortification). Folates are synthesized from pteridine, p-aminobenzoate (PABA), and glutamate precursors. Previously, we increased pteridine production in tomato fruit up to 140-fold by over...