johnsa@unimelb.edu.au

Over two billion people worldwide are impacted by micronutrient deficiencies. The development of biofortified food crops is a sustainable way of increasing micronutrient intakes at no additional cost to growers and food manufacturers.

We have employed multiple genetic strategies to biofortify wheat with iron (Fe) including genetic engineering to overexpress genes and gene editing to mutate coding sequences involved in Fe uptake, transport and translocation.

Much of our research has centred on the nicotianamine synthase (NAS) and hemerythrin motif-containing really interesting new gene (RING)- and zinc finger protein (HRZ) gene families in bread wheat, however, we are also interested in upstream Open Reading Frames (uORFs) that are located within the 5' leader sequence of many eukaryotic genes.

This presentation will describe several aspects of our research and highlight results relevant to not only Fe biofortification but also improved plant tolerance to Fe deficiency.