Journal article
Investigation of baseline iron levels in australian chickpea and evaluation of a transgenic biofortification approach
GZH Tan, SS Das Bhowmik, TML Hoang, MR Karbaschi, H Long, A Cheng, JP Bonneau, JT Beasley, AAT Johnson, B Williams, SG Mundree
Frontiers in Plant Science | FRONTIERS MEDIA SA | Published : 2018
Abstract
Iron deficiency currently affects over two billion people worldwide despite significant advances in technology and society aimed at mitigating this global health problem. Biofortification of food staples with iron (Fe) represents a sustainable approach for alleviating human Fe deficiency in developing countries, however, biofortification efforts have focused extensively on cereal staples while pulses have been largely overlooked. In this study we describe a genetic engineering (GE) approach to biofortify the pulse crop, chickpea (Cicer arietinumL.), with Fe using a combination of the chickpea nicotianamine synthase 2 (CaNAS2) and soybean (Glycine max) ferritin (GmFER) genes which function in..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Australian Government for the funding through the Tropical Pulses for Queensland project. We also thank the following people: Dr TJ Higgins for his invaluable guidance on chickpea transformation, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and Dr Yash Chauhan for provision of seed material, Waite Analytical Services, Dr Bulukani Mlalazi, Dr Charlotte Allen, and Miss Karine Moromizato for their guidance and assistance with trace elemental analyses.