Prospecting for Microelement Function and Biosafety Assessment of Transgenic Cereal Plants

Abstract

Microelement contents and metabolism are vitally important for cereal plant growth and development as well as end-use properties. While minerals phytotoxicity harms plants, microelement deficiency also affects human health. Genetic engineering provides a promising way to solve these problems. As plants vary in abilities to uptake, transport, and accumulate minerals, and the key enzymes acting on that process is primarily presented in this review. Subsequently, microelement function and biosafety assessment of transgenic cereal plants have become a key issue to be addressed. Progress in genetic engineering of cereal plants has been made with the introduction of quality, high-yield, and resistant genes since the first transgenic rice, corn, and wheat were born in 1988, 1990, and 1992, respectively. As the biosafety issue of transgenic cereal plants has now risen to be a top concern, many studies on transgenic biosafety have been carried out. Transgenic cereal biosafety issues mainly include two subjects, environmental friendliness and end-use safety. Different levels of gene confirmation, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and nutritiomics, absorption, metabolism, and function have been investigated. Also, the different levels of microelement contents have been measured in transgenic plants. Based on the motivation of the requested biosafety, systematic designs, and analysis of transgenic cereal are also presented in this review paper.

The Evaluation of the Effects of Zn, and Amino Acid-Containing Foliar Fertilizers on the Physiological and Biochemical Responses of a Hungarian Fodder Corn Hybrid

“…The activity of SOD and POD were notably higher when celery was treated with copper, zinc, and boron foliar fertilizer, compared to the control [51]. The micronutrient plays an important role in plant physiology, and their doses are a key factor in their functionality [52]. Amino acids have various roles in crops, such as reducing the stress responses in plants, nitrogen sources, hormone precursors [53], and antioxidant metabolism [54].…”

Biofortification of Plant- and Animal-Based Foods in Limiting the Problem of Microelement Deficiencies—A Narrative Review

“…Although modification strategies have varied, they mainly focus on bioaccumulation effects and limiting potential toxic effects due to over-concentration. For iron deficiency, the introduction of soybean ferritin genes into rice [96,97] and wheat [98] has proven to be an effective method. Another strategy in this area has been to reduce inhibitors of iron absorption like phytic acid by introducing genes encoding phytase [99].…”

A multi-omic resource of wheat seed tissues for nutrient deposition and improvement for human health

“…By contrast, consumption of wholegrain wheat-based food products has become the new dietary trend, as wheat bran provides many health-beneficial compounds 3 . Thereafter, increasing efforts have been made in the basic and applied research areas to understand the genetic basis of wheat quality, especially the nutritional quality traits, and to genetically improve these traits 4 , 5 . For example, several key enzymes in the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway have been functionally studied, including β-hydroxylase (HYD) 6 , lycopene epsilon cyclase (LCYε) 7 , carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases (CCD) 8 and aldehyde oxidase (AO) 9 , 10 , and transgenic wheat lines or mutant lines have been investigated to discover their effects on biofortification of β-carotene in wheat 11 – 15 .…”