Download "Value-Added GM Tomatoes are Synergistic with Sustainable Agriculture"

Autar K. Mattoo
USDA-ARS
Sustainable Agriculture Systems
Laboratory
Beltsville, Maryland
[email protected]
Agricultural Biotechnology & Sustainability
Princeton Symposium: April 29, 2009
Trends, Signs and Signatures from the Earth
Present and Future World Population Trends
56%
10%
50%
120%
-5%
42%
39%
• Produce more:develop capacity to feed 10
billion people within the next 40 to 50 years
• Declining trend in crop yields
• Increasing water shortage worldwide
Global Climate Change - Annual Cereal Yields –
Declining trend
Affects fruit production
Source: VR Reddy et al
Source: IFPRI
Trends That Shape Our
Future
• Precision based genetic manipulation –
Agricultural Biotechnology
• Diets with pro-health nutrients –
Preventive & Personalized ‘Medicine’
• Systems approach to crop production Sustainable Agriculture Production
• Rational integration of GM & sustainable
agriculture
Agriculture for Health
Engineering Tomato Fruit for Nutritional
Attributes for Human Health
ANTIOXIDANTS - NUTRIENTS
Pro-Vitamin A - β-Carotene, Flavonoids,
Phenolics, Lutein, Lycopene
AMINO ACIDS
Arginine, Glutamate, Glutamine, Isoleucine, Lysine,
Methionine, Threonine
MICRONUTRIENTS
Calcium, Choline, Iron, Zinc
WHAT IS NEW & EXCITING
• Nutrition-enriched food potentially decreases
incidence of diet-related diseases.
• Multiple interactions among fruit nutrients
positively influence antiproliferative activity
compaed to an isolated antioxidant.
• The nutritional molecules include: vitamins
(B, C, E and β-carotene), folates, lycopene,
flavonoids, isothyocyanates/glucosinolates,
polyphenols, glutathione and minerals.
HOWEVER,
antioxidant levels present in fruits
are low and influenced by genotype/
cultivar, growth condition and
developmental stage
Total antioxidant capacity of some fruits
FRAP value1
B/C
B
RB
SB
4.05.07
2.33.06
2.16 1.06-1.
6.88* 25
1Compare
Peach
Kiwi
Plum
Pineapple
0.911.33
Apricot Mango
Tomato
Apple
Banana
Pear
Melon
0.52
<0.2
0.35
these values to ground cloves with FRAP =
125.55 nmol 100g-1 FW
From Shukla & Mattoo 2009
Halvorsen et al. 2002 J Nutr
Halvorsen et al. 2006 Am J Clin Nutr
The HOPE
•  Genetic engineering - a refined tool to achieve
antioxidant capacity to recommended levels.
•  GM makes new resource possible for studying
relationships between diet, genetics and metabolism.
•  Interweaving biotech products and transcriptomeproteome-metabolome analysis should ease society’s
concerns and open the GM horticulture market.
•  Precision-based engineering of biochem pathways have
led to desired levels of antioxidants in fruits & other
crops.
Precision in Designed Gene Construct
Ripening-Specific Expression of Yeast SAM Decarboxylase
A. Gene Construct
NOS
promoter
NPT II
sequence
B. Validation
NOS
terminator
NOS
E8
SAMdc
promoter coding sequence terminator
C. Developmental Regulation
MG BR TU
PK RD
MG BR TU
PK RD MG BR TU
kb
PK RD
1.5
SAMdc
E8 exon1
Mehta et al.
rDNA
Nature Biotechnology
(2002) 20: 613-618
1.5
Wild type
556HO
579HO
Attributes of Transgenic Tomato Fruits
Longer Vine Life – multiple harvesting
Processing Quality – Higher by 50%
Antioxidant Capacity & Lycopene Content
Increased in Transgenic Tomato Fruit
Genotype
Azygous
Control
579HO
Transgenic
FRAP
value
0.57+0.11
0.95+0.08
Fold
Lycopene
Fold
Increase mg-1 gFW Increase
25-50
1.67
125-155
2-3
Mehta et al. 2002. Nature Biotechnol; Fatima et al. 2009 Unpublished.
Engineered value-added transgenic
tomatoes • higher antioxidant levels
• 50% improved juice quality, &
• longer vine life
Risk Assessment – Technologies Used
Global gene expression Proton-NMR Spectroscopy
DNA macroarrays
to evaluate unusual
Proteins – immunoblots
resonances
Metabolite profiles
Srivastava et al. 2007 Plant Biotechnol
Mattoo et al. 2007 J AOAC Intl
Mattoo et al. 2006 Plant Physiol
High antioxidant GM tomato fruit
extends life span and protects
against cardiovascular disease
•  Anthocyanin GM tomato fed to cancer-susceptible
Trp53 knock-out mice extended their life span Butelli et al. 2008 Nat Biotechnol 26:1301
•  Flavonoid-rich GM tomato fed to human Creactive protein transgenic (CRPtg) mice reduced
basal human CRP concentration compared to the
wild type tomato – Rein et al. 2006 J Nutr 136:2331
Note: The mice were fed a diet that had tomato quantity
supplied at a level achievable in human diet.
Conventional agriculture
• New varieties and higher crop production
HOWEVER,
its heavy reliance on chemical inputs:
synthetic fertilizer, pesticides & fossil fuel use
Has negatively impacted
World ecosystems; Human and animal health;
Top soil; Soil fertility; Contamination of major
natural resources, water and air
ADDED CONCERNS:
Rising energy costs; Global climate change &
Increasingly scarce production resources
AND,
As if that is not enough…..
We will be over 10 billion
by 2050 in a much
different climate than
what we have today
We need to produce
enough goods and services
in a sustainable way
Building soil organic matter to build capacity for
nutrients and water resources for crops
• Build species diversity to manage pests & weeds
• “Feed the soil, not the crop”
Long-term systems approach to build the fertility &
soil resilience to reduce synthetic chemical input
for crop production
Hairy vetch, an annual legume:
• A beneficial cover crop
• Fits well into different cropping rotations
• Is capable of high nitrogen fixation
• Produces substantial biomass
Black Plastic
82
96
108
96
108
Hairy Vetch Mulch
82
Practice of using cover crop mulches:
An alternative, eco-friendly production
system
1. Enriches soil with high organic residues
2. Uses lesser chemical inputs, no tillage
3. Tomato plants are naturally tolerant
to fungal pathogens & live longer
% Defoliation
Disease tolerance
Growth, disease tolerance & fruit yield in HVtomato system is gene x environment related
Signaling
Foliage,
Fruits
Gene Class
BP
c. Chaperones
Moisture
Root health
Microbes
Soil biology
Roots/soil
-----
BP
HV
0.6
0.9
0.6
1.1
0.3
1.0
0.5
1.2
1.0
1.5
chiB
osmo
0.3
1.0
0.9
1.2
hsp70
BiP
rRNA
0.2
0.9
0.5
1.1
rbcS
a.  Longevity &
photosynthesis rbcL
N-responsive G6PD
GS1
Root to Shoot
NiR
Communications
b. Defense related
-----
HV
(108/96)
82 96 108 82 96 108
Days after transplanting
Kumar et al. PNAS 2004
Mattoo & Abdul-Baki 2006
Cellular Networks Linking Fruit Metabolites
Mattoo et al. (2006) Plant Physiol.
Mattoo & Handa (2008) Plant Sci.
C:N Indicator Genes
Phosphoenolpyruvate
carboxylase & NADPdependent isocitrate
dehydrogense are
synergistically up-regulated
in transgenic tomato fruit
Neelam et al. 2008 JXB
Mulch-based and Ripening-Specific Modulation in Metabolites
in the Transgenic Fruit compared to the Azygous Control
Metabolites whose levels increased (arrow head) or decreased (horizontal bar) at
least by 50% in 556AZ-HV or 579HO-BP compared with 556AZ-BP
• Genetic modification of crop plants to enhance nutritional
quality and crop productivity is a promising technology for
sustainable agriculture and boosting food production in the
world.
• Cultural practices that utilize alternative agriculture
strategies including organic cultivation subscribe to
sustainable agriculture by limiting chemical usage and reduced
tillage.
• Significant genotype x mulch-dependent interactions on fruit
phenotype demonstrate synergistic modulation of nutrient
pathways.
•  Synergism between HV mulch and transgenic
tomato in upregulating N:C indicator genes PEPC
and ICDHc demonstrates significant cross talk
between plant organs.
•  Environment-dependent and transgenedependent changes coexist without any
qualitative deviation from normal fruit
metabolites. This observation bodes well for the
incorporation of genetically engineered
(transgenic) crops into alternative agriculture
practices.
USDA, ARS
Tahira Fatima
Vijaya Shukla
John Teasdale
Vinod Kumar
Anil Neelam
Aref Abdul-Baki
Ravinder Goyal
Purdue University
Avtar Handa
Alka Srivastava
CNR, Rome
Annalaura Segre†
Anatoli Sobolev