Jiamin  Wang , Jin  Zhang

Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of Crop Molecular Breeding, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Triticeae Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 5   
Received: 30 Jul., 2025    Accepted: 09 Sep., 2025    Published: 23 Sep., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

As an important food crop in the world, wheat is not only the main source of energy supply, but also an important basic raw material for the development of functional foods. This study systematically reviewed the composition characteristics of key nutrients in wheat (such as protein, dietary fiber, iron, zinc, selenium, etc.) and their potential benefits to human health, and explored feasible paths to improve the nutritional quality of wheat through traditional breeding, biofortification, gene editing and other strategies. At the same time, the influence mechanism of different agronomic management measures (such as soil nutrient optimization and irrigation control) on the accumulation of wheat nutrients was analyzed, and the application examples of high-iron and high-protein wheat in the development of functional foods in South Asia, Australia and China were summarized through case studies, verifying its great potential in improving nutrition and health and promoting market diversification. The study emphasized that in order to achieve large-scale promotion of nutritionally fortified wheat, it is necessary to comprehensively consider yield stability, consumer acceptance and the application of precision breeding technology. This study hopes to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the innovative development of wheat functional foods.

Wheat; Functional foods; Biofortification; Gene editing; Agronomic management