Long-Distance Trafficking of Mineral Elements From Soil-to-Seed Under Climate Change Impacts Crop Nutritional Quality

Climate change threatens agriculture by reducing nutrient-use efficiency, degrading soil health, and compromising food security. Altered temperature and precipitation patterns disrupt the soil elementome and nutrient stoichiometry, directly affecting crop nutritional quality. Plants adapt to fluctuating nutrient availability through membrane-bound transporters that mediate long-distance transport of minerals from the soil (source) to the seed (sink). This trafficking is controlled by genetic, epigenetic, and environmental cues. Although numerous reviews discuss mineral transport, they tend to focus on individual elements. In planta, multiple macro- (N, P, K, Ca, S, Mg) and micronutrients (Zn, Cu, Fe) move simultaneously along the soil-plant continuum, leading to complex interactions among uptake, signalling, and allocation pathways. This review integrates multi-element co-transport, subcellular partitioning, and epigenetic control across the root-leaf-seed axis under climate variability. We highlight the sequential roles of transporters in nutrient flux from roots and leaves to sink tissues, including the seed coat, endosperm, aleurone layer, and embryo. We also address the role of mineral nutrient transporters in mitigating the effects of adverse climatic conditions, such as drought, elevated temperatures, and elevated CO₂. Furthermore, we discuss the intracellular partitioning of minerals into organelles, including thylakoids, mitochondria, nuclei, Golgi apparatus, and vacuoles, thereby supporting their distinct metabolic and physiological functions. We also emphasise epigenetic regulation in fine-tuning transporter activity under contrasting nutrient regimes. Finally, we outline agronomic, breeding, and biotechnological strategies to enhance crop nutritional quality under a changing climate.