Some of the naturally occurring variants of the crtRB1 gene involved in the synthesis of beta carotene – the precursor of vitamin A, are responsible for increasing its levels in corn kernels, US scientists report in the pages of Nature Genetics.
Growing maize with these favorable gene variants will be an opportunity to improve health in developing countries. In poor developing countries, vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of blindness, affecting several thousand children each year, half of them dying. Enriching cereals with naturally occurring genes encoding provitamin A is one way to combat a deficiency of this important vitamin.
Torbert Rocheford and a team from Purdue University studied variants of maize genes encoding beta carotene hydroxylases – enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of provitamin A, and discovered a combination of crtRB1 gene variants that increases the level of beta carotene in corn grains on average from the standard 0,5 micrograms to as much as 9 micrograms per gram of grain. (PAP)