**1. Introduction**

In 2015, we edited a *Plants* Special Issue on "Phytic Acid Pathway and Breeding in Plants", with the aim to provide a unique compendium that highlighted new developments in our understanding of how perturbation in phytic acid (PA) synthesis and accumulation contributes to plant function, growth, and response to the environment. After 4 years, we believe that the development of biofortified crops to respond to mineral deficiencies is still challenging. For this reason, we decided to launch a new Special Issue on "Phytic Acid and Mineral Biofortification Strategies: From Plant Science to Breeding and Biotechnological Approaches" in which we collected articles and reviews providing new knowledge and technical advances in the field.

The review from Jha and Warkentin [1] can be considered as an introduction to the topics of the present Special Issue. Although it focuses on the approaches used to biofortify pulses for di fferent key micronutrients, it also provides a general overview of the di fferent strategies to tackle micronutrient deficiency. The authors first describe the requirements and functions of the di fferent key micronutrients in humans and the negative impacts of their deficiency in the diet. Then, di fferent approaches that can be used to improve micronutrient content and absorption from the diet are presented. These approaches include dietary diversification, the use of food supplements, food fortification, and biofortification.

The main objectives for crop seed biofortification are: (i) to increase seed micronutrient concentration; (ii) to decrease seed content of antinutritional factors that reduce micronutrient bioavailability, mainly PA.

To reach the first objective, it is important to acquire basic knowledge of the genes involved in mineral transport, such as the *Vacuolar Iron Transporter-Like* (*VTL*) genes described in the article from Sharma et al. [2], and of how minerals accumulate into seeds, the focus of the article by Pongrac et al. [3]. An overview of breeding approaches used to develop pulses with increased seed mineral concentration is presented in the already cited review [1].

The other contributions of the present Special Issue cover different aspects related to the second objective of crop biofortification. A very fascinating review from Raboy evaluates the possible economic and social impact of *low phytic acid* (*lpa*) mutants [4]. A review and a commentary are focused on *lpa* mutants in transporters [5,6]. Four articles describe the isolation and characterization in different crops of *lpa* mutants [7–10], derived from mutagenized populations [7,9,10] or from the genome editing technology approach [8]. An overview of the role of inositol pyrophosphates and useful recommendations for the development of novel *lpa* mutants is presented by Freed et al. [11].

### **2. Mineral Transport, Seed Accumulation, and Breeding to Increase Concentration in Seeds**
