Animal nutrition with feeds from genetically modified plants

Abstract

Plant breeders have made and will continue to make important contributions toward meeting the need for more and better feed and food. The use of new techniques to modify the genetic makeup of plants to improve their properties has led to a new generation of crops, grains and their by-products for feed. The use of ingredients and products from genetically modified plants (GMP) in animal nutrition properly raises many questions and issues, such as the role of a nutritional assessment of the modified feed or feed additive as part of safety assessment, the possible influence of genetically modified (GM) products on animal health and product quality and the persistence of the recombinant DNA and of the 'novel' protein in the digestive tract and tissues of food-producing animals. During the last few years many studies have determined the nutrient value of GM feeds compared to their conventional counterparts and some have additionally followed the fate of DNA and novel protein. The results available to date are reassuring and reveal no significant differences in the safety and nutritional value of feedstuffs containing material derived from the so-called 1st generation of genetically modified plants (those with unchanged gross composition) in comparison with non-GM varieties. In addition, no residues of recombinant DNA or novel proteins have been found in any organ or tissue samples obtained from animals fed with GMP. These results indicate that for compositionally equivalent GMP routine-feeding studies with target species generally add little to nutritional and safety assessment. However, the strategies devised for the nutritional and safety assessment of the 1st generation products will be much more difficult to apply to 2nd generation GMP in which significant changes in constituents have been deliberately introduced (e.g., increased fatty acids or amino acids content or a reduced concentration of undesirable constituents). It is suggested that studies made with animals will play a much more important role in insuring the safety of these 2nd generation constructs.

Detection of genetically modified maize and soybean in feed samples

“…GM maize and soybean crops, which have an important place in agriculture, are increasingly used in the production of food and feed (Flachowsky et al, 2005;Sieradzki et al, 2006;Vain, 2006;Yoke-Kqueen et al, 2011). Herbicide-tolerant, insect-resistant, virus-resistant, disease-tolerant plants have taken a place in the world's food and feed market.…”

Multi-Component Vaccines for Suppression of Type 1 Diabetes

“…Their ease of genome manipulation via genetic engineering techniques, their ability to correctly modify recombinant proteins while retaining biological activity and their simplicity for oral vaccine administration makes them ideal production and delivery vehicles for mucosal vaccination (Fuchs and Gonsalves 2007;Horn, Woodard, and Howard 2004;Streatfield 2006). Further, the federal government has confirmed the safety of transgenic plants for human consumption as no human toxicity has been detected since their first appearance two decades ago (Konig et al 2004;Flachowsky, Chesson, and Aulrich 2005). Having completed phase 3 trials, several plant synthesized pharmaceuticals have already emerged into the marketplace (Horn, Woodard, and Howard 2004).…”

The role of animal feeding trials for the nutritional and safety assessment of feeds from genetically modified plants – Present stage and future challenges

“…The animal studies did not show biologically relevant differences between animals fed with feed from GMP or their isogenic counterparts. Transgenic DNA and newly expressed proteins showed adequate properties as normal plant-DNA and proteins and are degraded during feed treatment and in the digestive tract of animals (Flachowsky et al, 2005a;Alexander et al, 2007;see Table 10). …”

“…During the last few years some reviews on nutritive and safety assessment of feeds from GM-plants (mostly plants from the first generation) were published (e.g., Clark and Ipharraguerre et al, 2001;Flachowsky and Aulrich, 2001;Aumaitre et al, 2002;Flachowsky et al, 2005aCAST, 2006). Furthermore the documents by ILSI (2003aILSI ( , 2007 and EFSA (2006,2008) also summarize the present stage of knowledge in feeding of feeds from GM-plants to target animals.…”