Iron biofortification of crop food by symbiosis with beneficial microorganisms

Abstract

Although iron is abundant in the earth crust, iron bioavailability to plants is low because of its poor solubility in water. Iron is essential for human health, but iron malnutrition occurs all around the world, therefore, how to fortify crop food of iron is important for maintenance of human health. Beneficial microorganisms, including mycorrhizal and root endophytic fungi, dark septate fungi, and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, possess multiple functions, especially those involved in resistance to abiotic and biotic stress and increased mineral uptake. Their efficiency is long-termed once they are applied in crop field. All the beneficial microorganisms can secret siderophores to enhance iron uptake and transport it to their host plants, therefore, application in food crops is a good access to iron biofortification. In the present article, we introduced traits of main beneficial microorganisms and application in crop food. Since some beneficial microorganisms might compete for nutrition each other in field, their synergism should be investigated before they are used in biofilmed biofertilizers specific to some food crops. Application of biofilmed biofertilizers is important for sustainable agriculture and human health.

Keywords:

• beneficial microorganism
• biofilmed biofertilizer
• iron biofortification
• mineral uptake

Conflict of interest

No conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

Chu Wu planned the whole article and outline, provide some references, and revised the manuscript. Chuyu Liu and Jinwang Qu wrote the rough manuscript. Jianglan Liu and Yao Pu reviewed and revised the rough manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 31870378); Fujian University Key Laboratory for Plant-Microbe Interaction (grant number PMI2018KF2).