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Iron Bioavailability of Maize Hemoglobin in a Caco‐2 Cell Culture Model
Author(s) -
Beavers Alyssa Whitney,
Bodnar Anastasia L,
Scott Marvin Paul,
Proulx Amy K,
Reddy Manju B
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.lb268
Subject(s) - bioavailability , hemoglobin , food science , chemistry , ferrous , endosperm , caco 2 , globin , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , agronomy , in vitro , biology , pharmacology , organic chemistry
Maize is an important staple crop in many parts of the world but has low iron bioavailability, in part due to its high phytate content. Hemoglobin is a form of iron that is highly bioavailable and not affected by phytate. We hypothesize that biofortification of maize with iron can be accomplished by overexpression of maize hemoglobin in the endosperm. Maize was transformed with a gene construct encoding a translational fusion of maize globin and green fluorescent protein under transcriptional control of the maize 27 kDa gamma zein promoter. Iron bioavailability of maize hemoglobin produced in E. coli and transformed seeds expressing the maize globin‐GFP fusion was determined using an in vitro Caco‐2 cell culture model. Maize flour fortified with purified hemoglobin had iron bioavailability similar to flour fortified with ferrous sulfate or bovine hemoglobin but is significantly higher than unfortified flour. Transformed maize was found to have significantly higher iron bioavailability than untransformed seeds, suggesting that overexpression of maize globin in endosperm may be one of the strategies to improve iron bioavailability of maize. Supported by Bailey Career Research Award and Biotechnology fellowship at Iowa State University