Transgenic Pro-Vitamin A Biofortified Crops for Improving Vitamin A Deficiency and Their Challenges

Abstract

Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) has been a public health problem among children in developing countries. To alleviate VAD, Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS), food fortification, biofortification and nutrition education have been implemented in various degrees of success with their own merits and limits. While VAS is the most widely utilized intervention in developing countries to ease the burden of VAD, some have raised questions on VAS' effectiveness. Biofortification, often touted as an effective alternative to VAS, has received significant attention. Among the available biofortification methods, adopting transgenic technology has not only facilitated rapid progress in science for enhanced pro-Vitamin A (pVA) levels in target crops, but drawn considerable skepticism in politics for safety issues. Additionally, VAD-afflicted target regions of transgenic pVA crops widely vary in their national stance on Genetically Modified (GM) products, which further complicates crop development and release. This paper briefly reviews VAS and its controversy which partly demanded shifts to food-based VAD interventions, and updates the current status of transgenic pVA crops. Also, this paper presents a framework to provide potential influencers for transgenic pVA crop development under politically challenging climates with GM products. The framework could be applicable to other transgenic micronutrient biofortification.

Staple Crops Biofortification Linking Agriculture, Food and Nutrition towards Eliminating Hidden Hunger

“…They are considerate on human, plant and environmental safety following adoption and consumption of genetically modified food. Another concern is the loss of biodiversity when biofortified crops are produced through genetic modification [66]. Moreover, with genetically modified biofortified crops, there is concern of commercial interests of multinational companies on genetic traits, indigenous community traditional knowledge, breeders' right and policy makers [65,67].…”

Recent advances in banana (musa spp.) biofortification to alleviate vitamin A deficiency

“…While conventional breeding exploits inherent natural genetic variation of existing populations for improvement, transgenic techniques employ the transfer of specific genes of interest, sometimes across taxonomic groups. The use of these techniques for biofortification has been previously reviewed (Bai et al, 2011;Al os et al, 2016;De Steur et al 2017;Giuliano, 2017;Lee 2017) with varying levels of progress. In terms of release of pVAC biofortified crops to farmers, conventional breeding has achieved much more progress with the release of several conventionally bred high carotenoid crops such as cassava, maize and sweet potato (Bouis and Saltzman, 2017).…”

“…In terms of release of pVAC biofortified crops to farmers, conventional breeding has achieved much more progress with the release of several conventionally bred high carotenoid crops such as cassava, maize and sweet potato (Bouis and Saltzman, 2017). Transgenic high carotenoid crops on the other hand are yet to be approved for release (De Steur et al, 2017;Lee, 2017). Both techniques have potential for pVAC enhancement in banana and are currently being explored.…”

“…Pioneering work on transgenic b-carotene enhancement involved insertion of genes which encode this rate-limiting step (the push strategy) and led to the development of golden rice (Ye et al, 2000). Following the genetic success with golden rice, this strategy has gained application in several other crops including wheat, maize, potato and banana (Kaur et al, 2016;Lee, 2017). Mlalazi (2010) investigated the role of PSY in carotenoid synthesis in the high carotenoid content Fe'i banana (Asupina) and low carotenoid content banana (Cavendish), based on the hypothesis that differences in carotenoid contents could be due to enzyme activity or factors regulating PSY gene expression.…”

“…While developing genetically modified (GM) crops is daunting but scientifically possible, their release and utilization by target populations are complicated by political and ethical concerns (Lee, 2017). Preliminary sensory tests for transgenic PVA biofortified bananas in Uganda indicated a preference for their texture and appearance (but not the taste), indicating consumer acceptability, but release is still pending due to the tedious regulatory framework and skepticism of consumers.…”