Assuring the Food Safety of Crops Developed through Breeding

Abstract

Breeding as a means to select improved plant varieties has benefited food security for millennia. Breeders rely on a plant species’ genetic diversity to develop new varieties that will meet the changing agronomic needs of growers, the functional and quality end points required by food processors and a multitude of end-user demands on sensory characteristics, convenience, and price. The history of safe use of crops for food and feed, combined with breeding practices designed to eliminate plants that do not meet performance or safety standards, has successfully enabled introduction of new varieties on a continuous basis. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has primary oversight of the safety of all plant-based foods including those from new plant varieties. In response to the use of recombinant DNA techniques to introduce modification in plants not possible through traditional breeding, FDA issued a policy statement in 1992 that outlines key considerations for safety evaluation of foods derived from new plant varieties. This includes the history of safe use of the crop and the donor organism from which any new genetic or protein sequences are derived and safety assessment of any newly introduced proteins or changes to the levels of key nutrients or toxins. As understanding of plant genetics has deepened, new breeding tools have become available. Genome editing is one of the latest classes of these new breeding tools that allows plant breeders to target gene loci to create deletions that inactivate gene(s), make modifications that enhance the function of a particular gene or move genes within a gene pool, harnessing existing genetic diversity from within a plant species and its sexually compatible relatives. FDA’s authority and specific guidance continues to be relevant for safety assessment of foods derived from these new plant varieties.

Prospects for developing allergen‐depleted food crops

“…Unfortunately, due to lack of information on low allergen content lines, there is not much effort on breeding varieties with reduced allergen content using conventional breeding approaches (Pandey et al., 2019; Riascos et al., 2010). Limited conventional breeding efforts are reported to improve the nutritional content of crops, which indirectly contributes to reducing allergenicity (Lemke et al., 2022). By increasing the nutritional value of crops, individuals with food allergies may have access to a wider range of nutrients and alternative food sources (Kaiser et al., 2020).…”

“…Glutenins are essential for baking quality, but gliadins include the majority of celiac disease‐associated pieces (epitopes). Although old hexaploid bread and tetraploid durum wheat varieties have been identified with few epitopes connected to gluten intolerance, generating favourable combinations of gluten genes to satisfy baking quality standards in a polyploid is difficult (Gilissen et al., 2014; Lemke et al., 2022).…”

Comparative Seed Proteome Profile Reveals No Alternation of Major Allergens in High-Yielding Mung Bean Cultivars

“…16 Breeders continue to use the best practices in the selection and commercialization of novel cultivars; nonetheless, it is imperative to assess the product quality and consumer safety in multiple dimensions. 17 In addition to their many health advantages, mung beans have also been known to cause allergic reactions. 18−21 According to the WHO/IUIS, four proteins [i.e., Vig r1 (pathogenesis-related protein, PR-10, Bet v 1 family member), Vig r2 (8S globulin), Vig r4 (seed albumin), and Vig r6 (cytokinin-specific binding protein)] have been identified as allergen proteins in mung beans (https://allergen.org/index.…”

Plot-Level Maize Early Stage Stand Counting and Spacing Detection Using Advanced Deep Learning Algorithms Based on UAV Imagery

“…Crop breeding is a critical process underlying global food security and raw material production [1]. Data of high quality and accuracy produced in breeding field trials are a fundamental component of breeding success.…”