As many people receive their daily supply of iron from vegetable diets, iron-rich vegetables contribute significantly to human health. Previous studies have shown that rice transformed with soybean ferritin under the control of a rice, seed-storage protein promoter accumulates three times more iron than normal seeds. So far, only japonica rice plants are being transformed. In collaboration with Prof. Uchimiya, Tokyo University, Japan, an indica variety is being transformed with the soybean ferritin gene. In order to improve the levels of iron further, we have introduced enhancer and IRES elements in our transformation vectors.
Work is in progress to obtain stable transgenic rice plants.
As the chloroplasts are the place for the final assembly of ferretin complex and iron accumulation, we have made an attempt to express the gene directly in tobacco plastids that can lead to very high expression. Transplastomic plants with ferritin gene have already been obtained. The resultant plants are currently under selection to obtain uniformly transformed plastid genome containing plants for further studies in the greenhouse. In the absence of an adaptive immune system, plants have evolved constitutive or inducible antimicrobial defense mechanisms. During the last decade, several classes of proteins and peptides with antifungal properties have been identified.