Gene That Could Help Solve Iron Deficiency Is Isolated

British and American scientists have isolated a gene that could help solve iron deficiency, one of the world’s most common nutrition problems. Researchers from the University of Newcastle in England and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire report in today’s Nature that the discovery of the FRO2 gene, which controls the iron content in plants, could help farmers grow more nutritious, iron-rich plants. An estimated 3.7 billion people worldwide suffer from iron deficiency, according to the World Health Organization.

FRO2 enables plants to produce reductase, an enzyme that converts iron from a ferric compound that cannot be absorbed by plants into a ferrous form that is an essential nutrient. Adding the gene to common crops such as rice could substantially increase their iron content.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II