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Making wheat flour more nutritious
Una harina de trigo más nutritiva
Washington, DC
November 24, 2006

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (301) 504-1662, marcia.wood@ars.usda.gov

Your favorite bread, breakfast cereal or pasta might tomorrow be made with wheat flour that's more nutritious than ever. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists have identified a gene that can increase the protein, iron and zinc content of wheat kernels. The gene, known as Gpc-B1, does that in bread wheats and pasta wheats alike.

Today, nearly all Americans eat enough protein for good health, but more than 36 million of us don't get enough zinc, and more than 15 million are short on iron. The wheat research, by enriching the nutrients in one of the world's leading crops, holds the potential to improve Americans' health and that of millions of the world's malnourished.

Plant geneticist Ann E. Blechl helped prove the Gpc-B1 gene's prowess in enhancing wheat flour's nutritional bounty. She used a technique called "RNA interference" to lower what are known as the gene’s expression levels in wheat plants. Blechl did the work in her laboratory at the ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif.

Collaborators working under the direction of wheat breeder and professor Jorge Dubcovsky of the University of California-Davis found that kernels harvested from the plants with lowered Gpc-B1 levels had at least 30 percent less protein, zinc and iron. According to Blechl, the work proved that Gpc-B1 controlled all of these nutrients. The finding predicts that incorporating additional copies of the functioning gene into bread and pasta wheats will be valuable.

Blechl is an international authority on the use of RNA interference and other biotech approaches to explore the largely untapped capabilities of genes of grain-bearing crops.

Dubcovsky, Blechl and colleagues in Haifa, Israel, report their findings in the current issue of the journal Science. A summary can be viewed on the World Wide Web by going to www.Sciencemag.org, then clicking on "current issue."

The research was sponsored by two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies--ARS and the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service--and the United States-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund.

ARS is USDA's chief in-house scientific research agency.
 

Wild gene boosts gene nutrients

Source: University of California, Davis

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Haifa in Israel have cloned a gene from wild wheat that increases the protein, zinc and iron content in the grain, potentially offering a solution to nutritional deficiencies affecting hundreds of millions of children around the world.

Results from the study were reported in the Nov. 24 issue of the journal Science.

"Wheat is one of the world's major crops, providing approximately one-fifth of all calories consumed by humans. Therefore, even small increases in wheat's nutritional value may help decrease deficiencies in protein and key micronutrients," said Professor Jorge Dubcovsky, a wheat breeder and lead researcher on this paper. He noted that the World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 billion people are deficient in zinc and iron, and more than 160 million children under the age of 5 lack an adequate protein supply.

The cloned gene, designated GPC-B1 for its effect on grain protein content, accelerates grain maturity and increases grain protein and micronutrient content by 10 to 15 percent in the wheat varieties studied so far. To prove that all these effects were produced by this gene, the researchers created genetically modified wheat lines with reduced levels of the GPC gene by a technique called RNA interference. These lines were developed by research geneticist Ann Blechl of USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Albany, Calif.

"The results were spectacular," Dubcovsky said. "The grains from the genetically modified plants matured several weeks later than the control plants and showed 30 percent less grain protein, zinc and iron, without differences in grain size. This experiment confirmed that this single gene was responsible for all these changes."

Dubcovsky said the research team was surprised to find that all cultivated pasta and bread wheat varieties analyzed so far have a nonfunctional copy of GPC-B1, suggesting that this gene was lost during the domestication of wheat.

"Therefore, the reintroduction of the functional gene from the wild species into commercial wheat varieties has the potential to increase the nutritional value of a large proportion of our current cultivated wheat varieties," he said. "Furthermore, this discovery provides a clear example of the value and importance of conserving the wild germplasm -- the source of genetic diversity -- of our crop species."

Dubcovsky leads a consortium of 20 public wheat-breeding programs known as the Wheat Coordinated Agricultural Project, which is rapidly introducing GPC-B1 and other valuable genes into U.S. wheat varieties using a rapid-breeding technique called marker assisted selection.
The resulting varieties are not genetically modified organisms, which will likely speed their commercial adoption. More information about the Wheat Coordinated Agricultural Project is available online at <http://maswheat.ucdavis.edu/>.

Several breeding programs have already used the GPC-B1 gene to develop elite breeding lines, which are close to being released as new wheat varieties. Breeders are currently testing the new lines in multiple environments to determine if the introduction of GPC-B1 has any negative impacts on yield or quality. The researchers hope that these efforts will soon translate into food products with enhanced nutritional value.

This research was supported by the National Research Initiative of USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, and by BARD, the United States-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund.

Wheat gene discovery could fight malnutrition

Hawk Jia, SciDev.Net

Scientists have found how to boost the protein, zinc and iron content in wheat, which could help to solve nutritional deficiency that affects two billion people worldwide, especially in the developing world.

Reporting their results in the journal Science today (24 November), the scientists identify a gene that functions in wild wheat but not in domesticated wheat varieties.

After inserting the gene into cultivated wheat with conventional breeding methods, they found it makes the grain mature more quickly and increases its protein and nutrient content by 10-15 per cent.

According to Jorge Dubcovsky, of the University of California in Davis, United States who led the study, scientists have long known that several varieties of wild wheat have higher protein content than domesticated types.

But it is only now, using a genetic mapping technique — which determines the relative positions of genes on a chromosome — that they have discovered which gene was responsible for the traits.

The work is part of a larger-scale breeding programme for increasing wheat's nutritional content, the seeds from which are stored in the US National Small Grains Collection and can be provided free of charge.

"We have already distributed seeds to India, South America and China," Dubcovsky told SciDev.Net.

Wheat is one of the major world food crops, and accounts for 20 per cent of human calorie intake.

Advances in basic plant sciences applied to agriculture will be critical for successfully eradicating malnutrition and associated childhood mortality, says Jonathan D. Gitlin at the US-based Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, writing in a separate article in the same issue of Science.

Una harina de trigo más nutritiva

Servicio Noticiero del Servicio de Investigación Agrícola (ARS siglas en inglés)
Departamento de Agricultura (USDA siglas en inglés)
Marcia Wood, (301) 504-1662, marcia.wood@ars.usda.gov

En el futuro, su favorito pan, cereal de desayuno o pasta podría ser hecho con una harina de trigo más nutritiva que nunca. Científicos del Servicio de Investigación Agrícola (ARS) y de universidades han identificado un gen que puede aumentar los niveles de proteína, hierro y zinc en los granos del trigo. El gen, conocido como Gpc-B1, hace esto en ambos trigos de pan y trigos de pasta.

Hoy en día, casi toda la gente estadounidense comen suficiente proteína para tener una salud buena, pero más de 36 millones de nosotros no conseguimos suficiente zinc, y a más de 15 millones les falta hierro. La investigación de trigo, por medio del enriquecimiento de los nutrientes en uno de los cultivos principales del mundo, tiene el potencial para mejorar la salud estadounidense y la salud de millones de gente desnutrida en el mundo.

La genetista de plantas Ann E. Blechl ayudó a mejorar la capacidad del gen Gpc-B1 para aumentar el valor nutritivo de la harina de trigo. Ella usó una técnica llamada la interferencia de ARN para reducir lo que se conoce como los niveles de expresión del gen en las plantas de trigo. Blechl realizó el trabajo en su laboratorio en el Centro de Investigación de la Región Occidental mantenido por ARS en Albany, California.

Algunos colaboradores trabajando bajo de la dirección del criador de trigo y profesor Jorge Dubcovsky de la Universidad de California-Davis descubrieron que los granos cosechados de las plantas con niveles reducidos de Gpc-B1 tuvieron por lo menos 30 por ciento menos proteína, zinc y hierro. Según Blechl, el trabajo demostró que Gpc-B1 controló todos estos nutrientes. El hallazgo predice que la inclusión de copias adicionales del gen en pan y pasta será valiosa.

Blechl es una autoridad internacional sobre el uso de la interferencia de ARN y otros métodos de biotecnología para explorar las capacidades no explotadas de los genes de los cultivos que rinden grano.

Dubcovsky, Blechl y colegas en Haifa, Israel, reportan sus hallazgos en la edición actual de la revista 'Science' (Ciencia). Se puede ver un resumen en Internet en www.Sciencemag.org (haz clic en 'current issue').

La investigación fue patrocinada por dos agencias del Departamento de Agricultura de EE.UU. (USDA por sus siglas en inglés) -- ARS y el Servicio Estatal Cooperativo de Investigación, Educación e Instrucción -- y el Fondo Binacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrícola de EE.UU. e Israel.

ARS es la agencia principal de investigaciones científicas del USDA.

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