The Hindu Business Line : Bt brinjal food quality same as conventional one: Study

Coimbatore March 30 Bio-safety studies conducted on Bt brinjal covering its chemical composition, toxicological and allergic properties have revealed that the transgenic vegetable crop's food and feed characteristics are substantially equivalent to the conventional ones.

No difference

The "substantial equivalence" studies on chemical composition of tissues of Bt brinjal plant have found out that no statistical differences were seen between the Bt brinjal and the conventional one with regard to moisture, proteins, oil, ash, carbohydrates and calories of fruit.

The comparative study was made using the fruit, leaf, stem and root tissues of Bt brinjal and conventional plants, according to a study report on Bt Brinjal presented on the safety assessment on GM (genetically modified) food crops.

The study report is among the background papers on GM Food crops presented at a consultative meet on "Safety assessment on GM Food crops" organised by the Department of Bio-technology, Government of India and the Biotech Consortium India Ltd.

Among select crop

The Bt brinjal is among the select food crops being developed now for commercial raising in the country.

Having undergone bio-safety studies, the transgenic vegetable crop being developed by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco) awaits large-scale field trials. Bt brinjal is incorporated with the `Cry 1Ac' gene, which is found to be effective against the fruit and shoot borer (leucinodes orbonalis), a common affliction seen in brinjal causing economic loss to its growers.

Toxicity

The Bt brinjal has also been subjected to toxicological and allergic studies using animal models at the laboratories of the Pune-based Intox Pvt Ltd and Rallis India Ltd's Bangalore facility.

The limit dose (of 5,000 mg/kg) testing of the Cry 1Ac protein expressed in the Bt brinjal against Sprague Dawley rats did not cause any toxicity.

Similar tests on other animals did not prove any biological differences between response among all brinjal hybrids, including the transgenic and conventional brinjal. When the fruit of brinjal was examined for presence of Bt protein after cooking, the protein was undetectable in the first sample, irrespective of the cooking method used.

Nutritional value

The Cry 1Ac protein, as per the study, gets rapidly degraded upon cooking. The study also revealed that the Bt brinjal as a wholesome feed to animals did not cause any adverse reaction when tested in separate feeding studies with fish, chicken, goats and cows. There was no significant difference in the nutritional value between the transgenic and conventional brinjal when fed to the animals.

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