Introduction

Anemia affects one third of the world's population, mostly in relation to iron deficiencies. Anemia and similar mineral deficiency diseases are primarily widespread in developing countries like India, partly resulting from their diet, which mainly made up of cereal grains and seeds such as rice . In these types of food, iron bioavailability is substantially reduced by the presence of phytic acid (C₆H₁₈O₂₄P₆) that chelates minerals and forms insoluble salts which precludes their absorption in the gastrointestinal tract.
Current research to increase the bioavailability of iron or zinc involves the bioengineering of crop plants which not only poses challenges in terms of the production of efficient genetically modified crops but also requires extensive research for drawing any conclusions on strain sustainability (Gupta et al. 2015).
We propose an alternative strategy that focuses on the bioengineering of microorganisms involved in the fermentation of idli, a dish widely used as primary food source in a large part of India. Indeed, the lab model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a strain present in the idli microbiome and that naturally produces phytases (Veide, 2006). Phytases are enzymes that are able hydrolyze phytic acid even when complexed with minerals, resulting in a greater mineral bioavailability (Gupta et al. 2015).
However the production of phytases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is down-regulated by two genes : PHO80, present on chromosome 15 and PHO85, found on chromosome 16. The knockout of these genes would likely increase the yield of phytase production and therefore increase the general bioavailability of minerals in fermatation-based dished such as idli.

Figure 2:Phytase hydrolyzes phytic acid.