Biotech Updates

Scientists Investigate Metabolic Changes in GE Maize Over-expressing the Aspergillus niger phyA2

December 9, 2015

In a study published in Plant Cell Reports, scientists compared the metabolic changes in GE maize mature seeds over-expressing the Aspergillus niger phyA2 with its non-GE counterpart and other 14 conventional maize lines to investigate substantial equivalence of the crops. Results showed that only 9 out of the 210 metabolites were significantly changed in GE maize as compared with its non-GE counterpart, and the number of significantly altered metabolites was decreased to four when the natural variations were considered. Thus, the researchers concluded that only when natural metabolic variation was taken into account, could non-targeted metabolomics provide reliable objective compositional substantial equivalence analysis on GE crops.

Read the full paper in Plant Cell Reports.