Provitamin a enrichment for tackling malnutrition

Abstract

People in many developing countries are affected by malnutrition due to either less availability of nutritious food or unbalanced diet. The major micronutrient deficiencies in the world are vitamin A, iron, zinc and iodine. Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of preventable blindness, growth retardation and decreased resistance to infection. Most of the population in developing countries rely on staple crops; thereby, the biofortification of these crops would be considered as a promising cost-effective and sustainable approach. Banana is an important staple fruit crop that contributes significantly towards the food security in many developing countries where vitamin A deficiency is a major problem. Transgenic banana with up to 20 µg/g dry weight β-carotene has been developed, and field trials are in progress in Uganda. Fruit-specific promoters and carotenoid pathway-related genes in banana were characterized for their role in the development of cisgenic biofortified crop. The recent advancement in precise genome engineering can open the novel prospect for the improvement of banana. These biotechnological approaches could be more advantageous to address regulatory and biosafety challenges for commercialization of biofortified banana. This chapter summarizes the prevalence of vitamin A micronutrient deficiency as well as the highlighted progress in biotechnological approaches for their possible role in the development of provitamin A-enriched banana.