title: Provitamin A biofortification of crop plants: a gold rush with many miners.
abstract: Carotenoids are synthesized de novo by plants, where they play fundamental physiological roles as photosynthetic pigments and precursors for signaling molecules. They are also essential components of a healthy diet, as dietary antioxidants and vitamin A precursors. Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in developing countries, which has prompted a series of efforts toward the biofortification of plant-derived foods with provitamin A carotenoids (mainly β-carotene), giving rise to 'golden' crops. Since the 'golden rice' exploit, a number of biofortified crops have been generated, using transgenic approaches as well as conventional breeding. Bioavailability studies have demonstrated the efficacy of several 'golden' crops in maintaining vitamin A status. This review presents the state of the art and the areas that need further experimentation.
authors.affiliation: Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Casaccia Research Center, Via Anguillarese 301, Roma 00123, Italy. Electronic address: giovanni.giuliano@enea.it.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giuliano
mesh_terms: D000072759:Biofortification / Q000379:methods*; D001682:Biological Availability; D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D000072664:Provitamins / Q000378:metabolism*; D014801:Vitamin A / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000072664:Provitamins; D014801:Vitamin A