Research 1

Plants and Iron: Contributing to Health
Research to enhance the iron and zinc nutritional value of rice

Increasing the mineral nutrition of rice, which is a staple food for about half of the world's population, will greatly contribute to the improvement of micronutrient deficiency, also known as "hidden hunger". Therefore, we strengthened the expression of genes related to the transport of metal nutrition and the accumulation of iron, and quadrupled the iron nutrition value in white rice and increased the zinc nutrition value by 60% by field cultivation. In addition, Koshihikari mutants irradiated with heavy ion beams were cultivated in the field for four generations, and mutants with high iron and zinc contents were selected.

We would like to increase the nutritional value of iron and zinc in Akita rice varieties such as Akita Komachi and develop new Akita brand rice.



Poster Presentation about this reserach Theme


高ミネラル米の作出
Production of Mineral Rich Rice



Related Publications

  • Masuda H, et al.(2008) Increase in Iron and Zinc Concentrations in Rice Grains Via the Introduction of Barley Genes Involved in Phytosiderophore Synthesis. Rice 1: 100-108.
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  • Masuda H, et al.(2009) Overexpression of the Barley Nicotianamine Synthase Gene HvNAS1 Increases Iron and Zinc Concentrations in Rice Grains. Rice 2: 155-166.
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  • Lee S, Jeon US, Lee SJ, Kim YK, Persson DP, Husted S, Schjorring J K, Kakei Y, Masuda H, Nishizawa NK, An G.(2009) Iron fortification of rice seeds through activation of the nicotianamine synthase gene. Proc Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106: 22014-22019.
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  • Masuda H, et al.(2010) Rice metal-nicotianamine transporter, OsYSL2, is required for the long-distance transport of iron and manganese. Plant J. 62: 379-90, 2010.
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  • Lee S, Persson DP, Hansen T H, Husted S, Schjoerring JK, Kim YS, Jeon US, Kim YK, Kakei Y, Masuda H, Nishizawa N K, An G.(2011) Bio-available zinc in rice seeds is increased by activation tagging of nicotianamine synthase. Plant Biotechnol. J. 9: 865-73.
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  • Masuda H, et al.(2012) Iron biofortification in rice by the introduction of multiple genes involved in iron nutrition. Sci. Rep. 2: 543, 2012.
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  • Masuda H, et al.(2013) Iron-biofortification in rice by the introduction of three barley genes participated in mugineic acid biosynthesis with soybean ferritin gene. Front. Plant Sci. 4:132.
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  • Aung MS, Masuda H, et al.(2013) Iron biofortification of Myanmar rice. Front. Plant Sci. 4: 158.
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  • Aung MS, Masuda H, et al. (2016) Identification of mineral-rich rice varieties in Myanmar. Myanmar Agri. Res. J. 3:14-29.
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