Nutritional equivalency evaluation of transgenic maize grain from event DP-Ø9814Ø-6 and transgenic soybeans containing event DP-356Ø43-5: Laying hen performance and egg quality measures

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare the nutritional performance of laying hens fed maize grain from event DP-Ø9814Ø-6 (98140; gat4621 and zm-hra genes) and processed soybean meal from soybeans containing event DP-356Ø43-5 (356043; gat4601 and gm-hra genes), individually or in combination, with the performance of hens fed diets containing nontransgenic maize and soybean meal. Healthy pullets (n = 216) placed in cages (3 hens/cage) were randomly assigned to 9 dietary treatments (8 cages/treatment): nontransgenic controls 1, 2, and 3 (comparable genetic background controls for 98140, 356043, and 98140 + 356043, respectively); reference 1, reference 2, and reference 3 (commercially available nontransgenic maize-soybean meal sources); and 98140 (test 1), 356043 (test 2), and 98140 + 356043 (test 3). The experiment was divided into three 4-wk phases (24 to 28 wk, 28 to 32 wk, and 32 to 36 wk of age), during which time hens were fed mash diets. Performance (BW, feed intake, and egg production) and egg quality data were collected. Data were analyzed using a mixed model ANOVA; differences between the control and respective test group means were considered significant at P < 0.05. Data generated from the reference groups were used only in the estimation of experimental variability and in generating the tolerance interval. Body weight and BW gain, egg production, and production efficiency for hens fed the test diets were similar to the respective values for hens fed the corresponding control diets. Haugh unit measures and egg component weights were similar between the respective test and control groups, and no differences were observed in quality grades or crack measures. All observed values of the control and test groups were within the calculated tolerance intervals. This research indicates that the performance and egg quality of hens fed diets containing 98140 maize grain, 356043 soybean meal, or a combination of the 2 was comparable with that of hens fed diets formulated with nontransgenic maize grain or soybean meal control diets with comparable genetic backgrounds.

Effects of feeding transgenic corn with mCry1Ac or maroACC gene to laying hens for 12 weeks on growth, egg quality and organ health

“…These results demonstrated no differences in nutritional performance of laying hens fed the transgenic corn diets when compared with laying hens fed the non-transgenic control diets; statistical analysis of the data in this study resulted in rejection of all hypotheses of different performance and egg quality. In agreement with these findings, previous studies with laying hens have shown that laying hen performance and egg quality is not affected by corn conferring pesticide resistance (Jacobs et al, 2008;Halle and Flachowsky, 2014) or herbicide tolerance traits (McNaughton et al, 2011). Transgenic feed have minimal effect on the small intestinal histology, which has been demonstrated in several studies.…”

“…Carcass yield or any individual parts yield was similar between the transgenic and control diets in the present study. This result is consistent with the observation that carcass yield of broilers was not affected by the BT corn diet (Brake and Vlachos, 1998;Aeschbacher et al, 2005) and by corn containing the glyphosate acetyltransferase gene (Taylor et al, 2005;McNaughton et al, 2011). …”

“…Previous studies have investigated the effect of GM corn on performance and egg quality of laying hens (Rasmussen et al, 2007;Jacobs et al, 2008;Scheideler et al, 2008;McNaughton et al, 2011). To our knowledge, this is the first study in hens that evaluated the potential nutritional impact of BT-799 and CC-2 corn on intestinal histology, organ function and performance.…”

“…Previous studies focus on performance and egg quality of laying hens to evaluate the nutritional equivalency of transgenic insect-resistant corn (Rasmussen et al, 2007;Jacobs et al, 2008;Scheideler et al, 2008) and transgenic herbicidal-tolerant corn (McNaughton et al, 2011) for a period of around 12 weeks; however, few studies have investigated the effect of transgenic corn on organ health and serum parameters of laying hens to evaluate the safety of transgenic corn. Some studies in other species found minor changes in organ weight and serum biochemical parameters for pigs Walsh et al, 2012) and rats (Kilic and Akay, 2008) fed transgenic corn.…”

Effects of transgenic poplar leaves with binary insect-resistance genes used as feed for rabbits

“…The Bt gene is the most effective and widely used insect toxin gene. Various studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect of Bt crops on animals (Michelle et al, 2007;Guertler et al, 2010;Grønsberg et al, 2011;McNaughton et al, 2011). Bioassays to determine insect resistance have revealed that the chitinaseBmkIT combination has lethal or growth-inhibiting effects on diamondback moth (Plutella maculipenis) larvae (Wang et al, 2005) and fall webworm (Hyphantria cunea) larvae (Yang et al, 2008), which confirms that the chitinaseBmkIT combination could be used as a new pest-resistant gene source and might be a complementary alien gene source to the Bt toxin gene.…”