Kamilla wrote:
>Actually, can we make the responses on-list? I'm interested in doing some
>reading in this area as it was my former choice for thesis topic.
>
>Kamilla
>
I sent this yesterday, but it never made it to the list, so I'll try again.
Preston G.
Andrew,
For a recent hopeful development, see the article in Science (summary and urls below) about engineering rice to produce the precursor of vitamin A. This has the potential to prevent thousands of cases of blindness in children in underdeveloped countries. I have been waiting to see how Greenpeace and Jeremy Rifkin will rationalize being opposed to this.
Preston G.
Abstract of the research article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/287/5451/303
Engineering the Provitamin A (-Carotene)
Biosynthetic Pathway into (Carotenoid-Free) Rice
Endosperm
Xudong Ye, 1* Salim Al-Babili, 2* Andreas Klöti, 1 Jing Zhang, 1 Paola Lucca, 1
Peter Beyer, 2§ Ingo Potrykus 1§
Rice (Oryza sativa), a major staple food, is usually milled to remove the oil-rich
aleurone layer that turns rancid upon storage, especially in tropical areas. The
remaining edible part of rice grains, the endosperm, lacks several essential nutrients,
such as provitamin A. Thus, predominant rice consumption promotes vitamin A
deficiency, a serious public health problem in at least 26 countries, including highly
populated areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Recombinant DNA technology
was used to improve its nutritional value in this respect. A combination of transgenes enabled biosynthesis of provitamin A in
the endosperm.
Accompanying Perspective article abstract:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/287/5451/241
PLANT BIOLOGY:
Enhanced: The Green Revolution Strikes Gold
Mary Lou Guerinot
Engineering plants to improve their nutritional value would be of great benefit to
developing countries. As Guerinot explains in a Perspective, half of the world's
population consume rice as a staple food, yet rice is devoid of many essential
nutrients such as vitamin A and iron. Now Ye et al. report that they have
successfully engineered rice plants to produce beta-carotene (from which vitamin A is
made) in the endosperm of the rice grain. As soon as true-breeding lines of this
engineered rice are established, seeds will be freely available to farmers in
developing countries. This should help to ameliorate vitamin A deficiency, which is
widespread in poor parts of the world.
A more general article on the topic of engineering better nutrition:
The 16 July 1999 issue of Science was a special issue on plant biotechnology. The issue included a review article by D. DellaPenna titled "Nutritional genomics: Manipulating plant micronutrients to improve human health."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/285/5426/375
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