Improvement of Aroma in Transgenic Potato As a Consequence of Impairing Tuber Browning

Abstract

Sensory analysis studies are critical in the development of quality enhanced crops, and may be an important component in the public acceptance of genetically modified foods. It has recently been established that odor preferences are shared between humans and mice, suggesting that odor exploration behavior in mice may be used to predict the effect of odors in humans. We have previously found that mice fed diets supplemented with engineered nonbrowning potatoes (-PPO) consumed more potato than mice fed diets supplemented with wild-type potatoes (WT). This prompted us to explore a possible role of potato odor in mice preference for nonbrowning potatoes. Taking advantage of two well established neuroscience paradigms, the “open field test” and the “nose-poking preference test”, we performed experiments where mice exploration behavior was monitored in preference assays on the basis of olfaction alone. No obvious preference was observed towards -PPO or WT lines when fresh potato samples were tested. However, when oxidized samples were tested, mice consistently investigated -PPO potatoes more times and for longer periods than WT potatoes. Congruently, humans discriminated WT from -PPO samples with a considerably better performance when oxidized samples were tested than when fresh samples were tested in blind olfactory experiments. Notably, even though participants ranked all samples with an intermediate level of pleasantness, there was a general consensus that the -PPO samples had a more intense odor and also evoked the sense-impression of a familiar vegetable more often than the WT samples. Taken together, these findings suggest that our previous observations might be influenced, at least in part, by differential odors that are accentuated among the lines once oxidative deterioration takes place. Additionally, our results suggest that nonbrowning potatoes, in addition to their extended shelf life, maintain their odor quality for longer periods of time than WT potatoes. To our knowledge this is the first report on the use of an animal model applied to the sensory analysis of a transgenic crop.

GMOs in animal agriculture: time to consider both costs and benefits in regulatory evaluations

“…Their grazing distribution was recorded for 50 d. There was no significant difference in the grazing preference of the animals [ 110 ]. In another study using a second generation GE potato, both mice and humans actually showed a preference for the aroma of a GE nonbrowning potato as compared to non-GE potatoes [ 111 ]. This effect was not observed when the potatoes were fresh, it was only seen 24 h after the potatoes had aged, presumably associated with the fact that the non-GE potatoes had oxidized and turned brown by that time.…”

State of the Art of Genetic Engineering in Potato: From the First Report to Its Future Potential

“…In addition, another biotechnological approach successfully applied in potatoes for stacking resistance genes against viruses is RNAi technology ( Missiou et al, 2004 ; Chung et al, 2013 ; Hameed et al, 2017 ). It is important to note that RNAi approach has been successfully employed in a great number of reports for disease and pest resistance ( Waterhouse et al, 1998 ; Missiou et al, 2004 ; Chung et al, 2013 ; Dinh et al, 2015 ; Sun et al, 2016 ; Hameed et al, 2017 ), improved processing quality ( Rommens et al, 2006 ; Llorente et al, 2010 ; Chawla et al, 2012 ; Zhu et al, 2016 ; Hameed et al, 2018 ), and improved nutritional value ( Van Eck et al, 2007 ; Itkin et al, 2013 ; Sawai et al, 2014 ). In fact, the effectiveness of this technology is illustrated in the several commercially approved GE potatoes based on RNAi ( ISAAA, 2021 2 ).…”

The Multiplanetary Future of Plant Synthetic Biology

“…Because carotenoid accumulation in plants is the result of multiple processes [ 23 , 76 , 77 ], the combination of various bioengineering strategies, from manipulating the carotenoid biosynthesis and storage mechanisms to installing alternative carotenogenic pathways [ 76 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ] holds potential to take the carotenoid content of crops to a new level. From a holistic point of view, the ultimate synthetic biology approach to make the most of plant-based food on Mars would be to develop multi-biofortified crops with improved nutritional properties [ 82 , 83 , 84 ] and enhanced quality traits (e.g., extended shelf life and reduced allergenicity) [ 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 ].…”