Abstract
Vitamin deficiency affects up to 50% of the world's population, disproportionately impacting on developing countries where populations endure monotonous, cereal-rich diets. Transgenic plants offer an effective way to increase the vitamin content of staple crops, but thus far it has only been possible to enhance individual vitamins. We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways. The transgenic kernels contained 169-fold the normal amount of beta-carotene, 6-fold the normal amount of ascorbate, and double the normal amount of folate. Levels of engineered vitamins remained stable at least through to the T3 homozygous generation. This achievement, which vastly exceeds any realized thus far by conventional breeding alone, opens the way for the development of nutritionally complete cereals to benefit the world's poorest people.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic kernels contained 169-fold the normal amount of beta-carotene.
- Taxon
- corn
Zea mays subsp. mayse0 - Material
- elite inbred South African transgenic corn plantse0
- Organ / stage
- kernelse1
- Treatment
- simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathwayse0
- Outcome
- amount of beta-carotenee1
- Direction
- increasede0
- Value
- 169-folde1
- Comparator
- the normal amount of beta-carotenee1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways”
e1“The transgenic kernels contained 169-fold the normal amount of beta-carotene, 6-fold the normal amount of ascorbate, and double the normal amount of folate”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic kernels contained 6-fold the normal amount of ascorbate.
- Taxon
- cornZea mays subsp. mayse0
- Material
- elite inbred South African transgenic corn plantse0
- Organ / stage
- kernelse1
- Treatment
- simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathwayse0
- Outcome
- amount of ascorbatee1
- Direction
- increasede0
- Value
- 6-folde1
- Comparator
- the normal amount of ascorbatee1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways”
e1“The transgenic kernels contained 169-fold the normal amount of beta-carotene, 6-fold the normal amount of ascorbate, and double the normal amount of folate”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic kernels contained double the normal amount of folate.
- Taxon
- cornZea mays subsp. mayse0
- Material
- elite inbred South African transgenic corn plantse0
- Organ / stage
- kernelse1
- Treatment
- simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathwayse0
- Outcome
- amount of folatee1
- Direction
- increasede0
- Value
- doublee1
- Comparator
- the normal amount of folatee1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways”
e1“The transgenic kernels contained 169-fold the normal amount of beta-carotene, 6-fold the normal amount of ascorbate, and double the normal amount of folate”
Claim · model-written summary
Levels of engineered vitamins remained stable at least through the T3 homozygous generation.
- Taxon
- cornZea mays subsp. mayse0
- Outcome
- Levels of engineered vitamins remained stablee2
- Qualifier
- at least through to the T3 homozygous generatione2
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways”
e2“Levels of engineered vitamins remained stable at least through to the T3 homozygous generation”
Claim · model-written summary
The achievement vastly exceeds any vitamin enhancement realized thus far by conventional breeding alone.
- Taxon
- cornZea mays subsp. mayse0
- Outcome
- This achievemente3
- Direction
- vastly exceedse3
- Comparator
- conventional breeding alonee3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“We created elite inbred South African transgenic corn plants in which the levels of 3 vitamins were increased specifically in the endosperm through the simultaneous modification of 3 separate metabolic pathways”
e3“This achievement, which vastly exceeds any realized thus far by conventional breeding alone”