Biotech Updates

HB4 Wheat Compositionally Equivalent to Non-transgenic Wheat

April 17, 2019

Wheat is one of the most popular cereal grain, taking up a large portion of the total cultivated land. Since drought is considered as one of the major sources of stress in plants, developing drought resistance trait while maintaining favorable yield is important. A sunflower gene (HaHB4 or Helianthus annuus homeobox 4) has been found to encode a transcription factor linked to tolerating environmental stress. Thus, scientists from Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia Rosario and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas in Argentina introduced HaHB4 in wheat and analyzed its compositional equivalence with non-transgenic wheat. The results are published in Transgenic Research.

The researchers analyzed 41 nutrients and 2 anti-nutrients for grain and 10 nutrients in forage through several tests. The findings showed that the transgenic wheat (HB4 wheat or event IND-ØØ412-7) is compositionally equivalent to non-transgenic wheat.

Read the research article in Transgenic Research.