Rice BT Protein Degrades Rapidly In Aerobic Paddy Soils

The degradation of Cry1Ab protein from Bt rice was observed to occur more rapidly in
paddy soils exposed to aerobic conditions than that in flooded conditions. The observation came from a study by researchers at the Zhejiang University, China and the University of California at Riverside. This means that if there are Bt proteins left during rice harvesting, it will be rapidly degraded after the field is drained and exposed to aerobic conditions.

The researchers extracted and purified the Cry1Ab protein during the booting stage of the transgenic rice plants. The experiment was conducted under controlled conditions using 50 mL of the protein extract incubated in five types of paddy soils.

The research also determined the stability of the Bt protein expressed by the transgenic rice variety ‘Ke-Ming-Dao’ (KMD) under different pH conditions. It was determined that the Bt protein breaks down more rapidly with decreasing soil pH, while becoming more stable at high pH.

The abstract of the paper, with links for subscribers, can be found at http://pubs3.acs.org/acs/journals/doilookup?in_doi=10.1021/jf062924x.