Researchers Develop Biofortified Golden Lettuce with 30 Times More Beta Carotene

A research team from the Research Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP), a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), has developed an innovative method for the biofortification of leaves and other green plant tissues with increased healthy substances such as beta-carotene, the main precursor of vitamin A in the human diet.

Beta-carotene is the primary precursor of retinoids, chemical compounds with essential bodily functions (vision, cell proliferation and differentiation, and immune system), including vitamin A. Using tobacco plants as a laboratory model and lettuce as a cultivation model, the team led by Manuel Rodríguez Concepción, CSIC researcher at the IBMCP, managed to increase the beta-carotene content in the leaves without negatively affecting other key processes such as photosynthesis. The study shows that it is possible to multiply the beta-carotene levels in leaves by creating new places to store them outside the photosynthetic complexes. The researchers were able to store high levels of beta-carotene in plastoglobules, the fat storage vesicles inside chloroplasts.

The study also shows that beta-carotene synthesis in plastoglobules can be combined with its production outside chloroplasts through biotechnological approaches. Co-author Pablo Pérez Colao said that beta-carotene accumulates in vesicles similar to plastoglobules but located in the cytosol. The combination of both strategies achieved up to a 30-fold increase in beta-carotene levels compared to untreated leaves. The massive accumulation of beta-carotene also gave the lettuce leaves a characteristic golden color. According to the researchers, the discovery that beta-carotene can be produced and stored at very high levels in a more bioaccessible form outside the places where it is usually found in leaves 'represents a very significant advance for improving nutrition through biofortification of vegetables such as lettuce, chard or spinach without giving up their characteristic scent and flavor.'

For more details, read the news article in the UPV website.