Enhancing Food Quality and Plant Stress Tolerance through Selenium Biofortification: Strategies, Progress, and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Micronutrients play a crucial role in sustaining human health, and despite their requirement in minimal quantities, deficiencies impact an estimated 3 billion individuals worldwide. Selenium is noteworthy in this context. The inadequate intake of dietary selenium affects up to 1 in 7 people’s health. Prediction models anticipate that those alterations produced by climate change, specifically in the soil's organic carbon content, can result in a general decline in soil selenium concentrations, especially in agricultural regions. The biofortification of plants with selenium has been studied using various techniques, including genetic biofortification and the application of selenium fertilizers. Additionally, selenium is a beneficial element for plants that promotes their development and improves their agronomic parameters under unfavorable growth conditions.

This research topic aims to enhance our understanding of plant selenium biofortification and decrease the incidence of selenium deficiency in plants.

Authors are invited to submit original research, reviews, methods, and perspectives/opinions/hypotheses on topics that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The assessment of nutritional and quality parameters in crops after Se biofortification;
• Se biofortification effects in plant development;
• Plant tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses after Se biofortification;
• Se biofortification strategies and techniques in plants.

Dr. María Gabriela Guevara
Guest Editor

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• crops improvement
• climate change
• selenium
• biofortification
• foods
• human health
• plant abiotic stress
• plant biotic stress