REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
From Soil to Nutrition: Integrating Molecular Mechanisms and Agronomic Strategies for Selenium Biofortification in Horticultural Crops
Provisionally accepted
- 1National Key Laboratory for Tropical Crop Breeding, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Sanya Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Sanya, China
- 2Government College University Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Selenium (Se) is an essential element for humans. Biologically, it is incorporated into selenoproteins, which play crucial roles in thyroid hormone metabolism, immune system regulation, and antioxidant capacity. However, Se deficiency is a global health concern, affecting over 1 billion individuals, and the production of Se-fortified crops is inevitable. As a way forward, the biofortification of horticultural crops could improve Se nutrition. For plants, Se is a beneficial element, and crops exhibit significant variation in their ability to uptake Se which is also influenced by soil pH. Therefore, this review focuses on recent advancements in Se biofortification technologies for horticultural crops, including soil and foliar application methods, and explores the physiological processes and genetic mechanisms underlying Se uptake, transport, and assimilation in these crops. Furthermore, the effectiveness of different Se-salts in the regulation of Se levels in crops has been discussed, with special emphasis on the mechanisms involved.
Keywords: biofortification, Human Nutrition, Horticultural crops, Selenium, Selenoproteins
Received: 28 Sep 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Shafiq, Ding and He. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yingdui He, yfzhglyjz@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.