10/12/2025
New Research: Dual OsVIT1/OsVIT2 knockout exposes trade-off in rice iron biofortification. 🌾🔬
🔍 Key findings:
• osvit1/osvit2 rice accumulates 30–100% more iron (Fe) in brown rice grains.
• Fe strongly increases in the scutellum + plumule — reshaping embryo Fe distribution.
• Increased seed Fe comes mainly from root-derived uptake, not leaf remobilisation.
• BUT… these mutants are more sensitive to Fe toxicity, showing bronzing.
• Gas-exchange measurements using the ADC BioScientific LCpro-SD https://www.adc.co.uk/products/lcpro-t-intelligent-photosynthesis-system/ showed that under Fe-excess, mutants had significantly reduced CO₂ assimilation and stomatal conductance, confirming impaired photosynthetic performance.
🌱 Implications:
This work uncovers a significant biofortification dilemma: boosting grain iron levels may compromise plant tolerance to Fe-rich, waterlogged soils. Future breeding must balance nutritional gains vs field performance.
This research was conducted by an international collaboration of scientists from The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil),
University of São Paulo (Brazil)
Federal University of Pelotas (Italy)
Free University of Bolzano (Italy)
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (Chile)
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials
The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Germany
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📄Full research article: https://academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jxb/eraf505/8327158?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
Contact us: [email protected], www.adc.co.uk
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