Biologists Jinsheng Lai and Joachim Messing of Rutgers University have found a way to make corn more nutritious.
Corn is one of the major crops in the world especially in developing countries. However, its kernels have low levels of methionine, an essential amino acid needed in the diet. Higher levels of methionine could provide better nutrition in the developing world and save farmers $1 billion per year in synthetic methionine supplements to corn-based feed.
Scientists have tried to raise the level of methionine in corn but Lai and Messing have found a way. Corn already has a gene for a methionine-rich protein called delta-zein, but its production is limited.
The Rutgers biologists discovered that another protein, Dzr1, latches on to a sequence in the RNA bound for making delta-zein. The scientists replaced the sequence with a code from another corn gene to prevent Dzr1 from getting the RNA and raised the production of delta-zein. Chickens fed on this corn grew significantly faster than those fed with normal corn.
Since the technique does not add new genes, it sidesteps fears that moving genes between unrelated species could cause unexpected toxicity or spread genes in the wild.
Lai and Messing hope that the technique will get GM foods onto the market where others have failed. The article is at
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2002/621/1.

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