Cominelli Eleonora, Pilu Roberto, Sparvoli Francesca
Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via E. Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences-Production Landscape, Agroenergy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via G. Celoria 2, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Plants (Basel). 2020 Apr 26;9(5):553. doi: 10.3390/plants9050553.
Mineral deficiencies, particularly for iron and zinc, affect over two billion people worldwide, mainly in developing countries where diets are based on the consumption of staple crops. Mineral biofortification includes different approaches aimed to increase mineral concentration and to improve mineral bioavailability in the edible parts of plants, particularly the seeds. A multidisciplinary approach, including agronomic, genetic, physiological, and molecular expertise, is necessary to obtain detailed knowledge of the complex homeostatic mechanisms that tightly regulate seed mineral concentrations and the molecules and mechanisms that determine mineral bioavailability, necessary to reach the biofortification objectives. To increase bioavailability, one strategy is to decrease seed content of phytic acid, a highly electronegative molecule present in the cell that chelates positively charged metal ions, many of which are important for human nutrition. All the contributions of the current Special Issue aim at describing new results, reviewing the literature, and also commenting on some of the economic and sociological aspects concerning biofortification research. A number of contributions are related to the study of mineral transport, seed accumulation, and approaches to increase seed micronutrient concentration. The remaining ones are mainly focused on the study of mutants.
矿物质缺乏，尤其是铁和锌的缺乏，影响着全球超过20亿人，主要是在那些以食用主食作物为主的发展中国家。矿物质生物强化包括不同的方法，旨在提高植物可食用部分，特别是种子中的矿物质浓度，并提高矿物质的生物利用度。要详细了解严格调节种子矿物质浓度的复杂稳态机制以及决定矿物质生物利用度的分子和机制（这是实现生物强化目标所必需的），就需要一种多学科方法，包括农艺学、遗传学、生理学和分子学方面的专业知识。为了提高生物利用度，一种策略是降低种子中植酸的含量，植酸是细胞中存在的一种高度带负电的分子，它能螯合带正电的金属离子，其中许多金属离子对人类营养很重要。本期特刊的所有稿件旨在描述新成果、回顾文献，并对生物强化研究的一些经济和社会学方面进行评论。一些稿件与矿物质运输、种子积累以及提高种子微量营养素浓度的方法研究有关。其余稿件主要集中在突变体研究上。
