Nutritional Composition of Genetically Modified Peanut Varieties

Abstract

: Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.), an economically important crop throughout the world, is susceptible to many types of fungal pathogens. Genetic engineering offers great potential for developing peanut cultivars resistant to a broad spectrum of pathogens that pose a recurring threat to peanut health. The main objective of this research project was to assess the “substantial equivalence” and nutritional safety of biotechnology derived peanut lines. The focus of this study was on genetically modified peanut (GMP) lines developed for growth in the southwestern United States. Three transgenic peanut lines, 188, 540, and 654, and the parent line Okrun were analyzed for their oil, protein, ash, moisture, total dietary fiber, mineral, and fatty acid compositions. Oil content of all the GMP lines was similar to that of the parent line. The GMP line 188 had significantly higher protein content than the parent line, Okrun. Although there were statistical differences in the fatty acid composition among some of the GMP lines and the parent line, the variations were not substantial. The proximate compositions of all peanut lines were within the range reported for traditional peanut varieties. This study indicates that, for the peanut lines studied, genetic modification did not cause substantial unintentional changes in peanut chemical composition, which might reduce the nutritional value of peanut.

Nutritional composition of new Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) cultivars

“…Sitosterol was the most abundant and the three accounted for 90% of total phytosterols, which is in accordance with Grosso and Guzmán, (1995). Also, the percentage reported here for sitosterol in peanuts is similar to the recently reported levels of sitosterol in new breeding lines of peanuts (Jonnala et al, 2005b;Jonnala et al, 2006a;Jonnala et al, 2006b). The role of phytosterols in reducing total plasma cholesterol, mainly LDL-cholesterol has been reported by several authors (Alper and Matter, 2003;Coates and Howe, 2007;Valenzuela and Ronco, 2004).…”

“…Lysine and threonine are considered the only real essential amino acids from the metabolic point of view (Jonnala et al, 2005b). The results in this study showed that VA-81-B cultivar contains the highest level of lysine (43.5 mg/ g protein) and threonine (21 mg/ g protein).…”

“…These two chemical components constitute the main components in peanut cultivars. These values correspond to the expected percentages normally found in peanuts (Jonnala et al, 2005a;Jonnala et al, 2005b).…”

- Next-Generation Sequencing and Assembly of Bacterial Genomes

“…Aside from the abovementioned case, if the gene which is inactivated by the construct insertion is a transcription factor, large changes in the genome regulation can be expected, which in turn could lead to many alterations in metabolite concentration and composition. Because of this fact, along with the concept of substantial equivalence, the use of metabolomic, proteomic, and transcriptomic techniques had been suggested to analyze alterations in transgenic plants [167] as a better approach compared with the analysis of the major nutrients such as ash, total solid, protein, lipid, crude fiber, dietary fiber, total carbohydrate, and minerals [160,[168][169][170][171][172], or the analysis of specific components of the plant such as glycoalkaloids, vitamin C, total nitrogen, fatty acids, and trypsin inhibitor activity [173], or the proximate composition as well as essential amino acids such as lysine and tryptophan [161].…”

Genetic Improvement of Oilseed Crops Using Modern Biotechnology

“…In that report, three transgenic lines showed a significant resistance to the pathogen compared with the wild-type cultivar. Finally, Jonnala et al [90] determined the oil composition of the best three transgenic lines obtained in the previous report. This author reported similar oil content of all transgenic peanut lines to that wild-type lines, indicating that genetic modification did not cause substantial unintentional changes in peanut chemical composition.…”