Madrid, Spain
June 28, 2007
Source:
GMO Compass
Spanish scientists have developed
a new technique that may result in better nutritional and safety
profiles for the next generation of genetically modified plants.
The method has been published in the recent issue of the
scientific magazine Analytical Chemistry and analyses potential
changes in the amino acid composition of transgenic crops.
The new technique may be of great interest for industry and
consumers alike, since it potentially improves nutritional and
safety profiling of transgenic crops and shows how they may
differ from their conventional counterparts. "The analysis
demonstrated for the first time that it can be used as an
additional indicator in assessing the existence of unexpected
modifications in metabolic pathways linked to the amino acid
profile within a GMO," wrote researchers.
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Herrero and
co-workers were able to analyse the amino acid composition in
less than 25 minutes, and found that conventional maize
varieties show different profiles, reflecting the variability
expected from nature. Comparison with corresponding transgenic
Bt maize varieties found no significant difference. "This result
seems to indicate that, in these maize samples, the new inserted
Cry1Ab transgene has not modified any metabolic pathway linked
to the detected amino acids, which seems to add a further proof
of the safety equivalence of these samples," stated researchers.
Analytical Chemistry publication
Analysis of Chiral Amino Acids in Conventional and Transgenic
Maize
Miguel Herrero, Elena Iba´n˜ ez, Pedro J. Martı´n-AÄ lvarez,
and Alejandro Cifuentes
Institute of Industrial Fermentations (CSIC), Juan de la Cierva
3, 28006 Madrid, Spain
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/ancham/asap/pdf/ac070454f.pdf |
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