More than half of the world's population is affected by micronutrient malnutrition and one-third of the world’s population suffers from anaemia and zinc deficiency, particularly in developing countries. Phytic acid is the major storage form of phosphorous in cereals, legumes, oil seeds and nuts. Phytic acid is considered one of the major antinutritional compounds in cereal and legume seeds. Phytic acid chelates micronutrient and prevents their bioavailability for monogastric animals, including humans, because they lack enzyme phytase in their digestive tract. Several methods have been developed to reduce the phytic acid content in food. These include genetic improvement and several pre-treatment methods such as fermentation, soaking and germination. From a mutagenised population of common bean lpa (low phytic acid) mutants that have increased bioavailability of mineral cations were developed.. A homozygous lpa mutant line (lpa-280-10) of common bean was isolated showing, compared to wild type, a 90 % reduction of phytic acid, a 25 % reduction of raffinosaccharides and a higher amount of free or weakly bound iron cations in the seed. Consumption of common bean seeds with the low phytic acid 1 (lpa1) caused adverse gastrointestinal effects, presumably due to increased stability of lectin phytohemagglutinin L (PHA-L). A hard-to-cook (HTC) defect observed in lpa1 seeds intensified this problem.
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