Iron chelating bacteria: a carrier for biofortification and plant growth promotion

Abstract

Biofortification is the process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology to focus on malnourishment in developing countries. Under iron restricted environment certain bacteria (iron chelating bacteria) produced iron chelating molecules called as siderophore. This review gives an overview of Need for biofortification, Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, Plant growth promoting consortia, importance of iron for human health, uptake of iron in plants, iron chelating (siderophore producing) bacteria as plant growth promotor, siderophore, generalized mechanism for siderophore-mediated iron transport in bacteria and the possible approaches to enhancing iron content in plants by implementing iron chelating bacteria as biotechnological carrier for increasing plant nutrition, yield and quality.