15-10-2014, 03:55 PM
Nearly half of the world population depending largely on staple food cereals is suffering from “hidden hunger”, the micronutrient iron and zinc deficiency which is more prevalent among infants, children, adolescent and child-bearing women thus adversely affecting their health and capacity to work. The iron and zinc content in the staple food sources is not only low but only a small proportion of the same is retained during processing and is bioavailable due to the presence of several endogenous and exogenous inhibitors such as phytic acid. The Department of Biotechnology, Govt. India has recently funded the above multi-institutional network project for biofortification of wheat for high iron and zinc content and low phytic acid using conventional molecular breeding approaches at a total cost of Rs 373.82 lakhs at IARI, New Delhi; IIT, Roorkee; PAU, Ludhiana; ARI, Pune and IARI, Indore. The quantitative trait loci (QTLs) controlling high iron and zinc uptake, transport and loading in the seed will be introgressed from the related progenitor and non-progenitor Triticum and Aegilops species into elite bread and durum wheat cultivars of India . The team of four scientists and a number of Research Scholars at IIT Roorkee led by Dr. H. S. Dhaliwal as the Principal Investigator has already identified a number of sources among the related wild species of wheat with 2-4 fold high iron and zinc content some of which have been crossed with appropriate recipient wheat and durum cultivars. Various molecular breeding and cytogenetic techniques will be used in subsequent generation for the precise transfer of QTLs for high iron and zinc. Phytic acid, the most important antinutritional factor capable of chelating iron can be degraded by endogenous phytase up to 75% through seed soaking without significantly deteriorating the processing quality.
Outlay: 83.34 Lakhs