INVESTIGADORES
CARRARI Fernando Oscar
artículos
Título:
Vitamin Deficiencies in Humans: Can Plant Science Help?
Autor/es:
FITZPATRICK T; BASSET GJC; PATRICK BOREL; FERNANDO CARRARI; DEAN DELLAPENNA; PAUL D. FRASER; HANJO HELLMANN; SONIA OSORIO; CHRISTOPHE ROTHAN; VICTORIANO VALPUESTA; CATHERINE CARIS-VEYRAT; ALISDAIR R. FERNIE
Revista:
PLANT CELL
Editorial:
AMER SOC PLANT BIOLOGISTS
Referencias:
Lugar: Rockville; Año: 2012 p. 395 - 414
ISSN:
1040-4651
Resumen:
The term vitamin describes a small group of organic compounds that are absolutely required in the human diet. Although for
the most part, dependency criteria are met in developed countries through balanced diets, this is not the case for the five
billion people in developing countries who depend predominantly on a single staple crop for survival. Thus, providing a more
balanced vitamin intake from high-quality food remains one of the grandest challenges for global human nutrition in the
coming decade(s). Here, we describe the known importance of vitamins in human health and current knowledge on their
metabolism in plants. Deficits in developing countries are a combined consequence of a paucity of specific vitamins in
major food staple crops, losses during crop processing, and/or overreliance on a single species as a primary food source.
We discuss the role that plant science can play in addressing this problem and review successful engineering of vitamin
pathways. We conclude that while considerable advances have been made in understanding vitamin metabolic pathways in
plants, more cross-disciplinary approaches must be adopted to provide adequate levels of all vitamins in the major staple
crops to eradicate vitamin deficiencies from the global population.