Multiple Statistical Analyses Show Compositional Equivalence of Bt and non-Bt Rice Varieties

Researchers from the Republic of Korea documented that Bt rice is compositionally equivalent to its non-Bt counterpart by using four different statistical analyses. This means that the nutrient and antinutrient contents of both crops do not differ from each other.

The multivariate analyses used were: (1) the analysis of percent variability, (2) analysis of similarities (ANOISM), (3) similarity percentage (SIMPER) analysis, and (4) permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA). All were used on data collected from field trials of the Bt rice conducted in two locations for two consecutive years in South Korea. Aside from the samples of Bt rice containing the mCry1Ac gene, samples from the near-isogenic line comparator rice cultivar and four commercial cultivars were also used in the analyses.

The results showed differences between the Bt and non-Bt rice which were within the reference range. Environmental factors were found to influence the rice components' variability more than the genetic factors. Aside from concluding that the Bt rice is compositionally equivalent to the non-Bt rice varieties, the researchers also noted that the multivariate approach was a powerful method in providing significant evaluations between the two crops.

Read the full study in GM Crops & Food.