GoldenRice TM - a success story

Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries Lack of vitamin A is the leading cause of blindness among children in developing countries –250,000 children per year go blind –124 million children worldwide are deficient in vitamin A Oral delivery is difficult because of lack of infrastructure

GoldenRice Rice is a major staple food in Asia The outer oil-rich, nutritious aleurone layer is usually milled because it turns rancid upon storage in tropical areas The remaining endosperm lacks provitamin A (  carotene)

 -carotene biosynthetic pathway The problem with rice: Does not express phytoene synthase in endosperm Does not express phytoene desaturase or  -carotene desaturase

The solution Ingo Potrykus and colleagues engineered rice to contain genes for two enzymes 3 phytoene synthase from daffodil   carotene desaturase from Erwinia The resulting rice endosperm can yield 100 mg retinol equivalent / 300 g rice –1.3 µg  -carotene / g rice –U.S. RDA for 1- to 3-year-old children is 300 µg Ye et al. (2000) Science 287:

What’s new? Golden Rice does not meet the minimum RDA for vitamin A New version--Golden Rice 2--has been made by adding the maize phytoene synthase gene Paine et al., Nature Biotechnology 23:482.

Golden Rice 2 Supplies 50% of the 300 µg vitamin A RDA in 72 g of dry rice –Typical child’s portion of rice is 60 g –This amount of rice is eaten twice a day in many countries

What’s next? Use traditional breeding to introduce the  -carotene production into strains of rice that grow well in developing countries –India –China –Africa –Latin America Overcome the GMO opposition

Overcoming the GMO opposition Golden rice fulfills the wishes of the GMO opposition It was not developed by industry, and industry does not benefit from it It presents a sustainable, cost-free solution, not requiring other resources It is given free of charge and it benefits the poor and disadvantaged It does not create new dependencies on, or advantages for, rich landowners It can be resown every year from saved seed It does not reduce agricultural or natural biodiversity It does not present any negative impact on the environment or risk to human health

Golden Rice is a success