A two-generation reproduction study with transgenic Bt rice TT51 in Wistar rats

Abstract

TT51 is a transgenic Bt rice created by fusion a synthetic CryAb/CryAc gene into rice MingHui63. A significant number of animal feeding studies with transgenic crops have been carried out with the rapid development of transgenic crops. However, the evidence is far from identifying whether certain novel transgenic crops possess potential danger for human or animal health after long-term consumption. Rice-based diets, containing 60% ordinary grocery rice, MingHui63 rice or TT51 rice by weight, were fed to two generations of male and female rats in order to determine the potential reproductive effects of TT51. In this study, both clinical performance variables and histopathological responses were examined and compared between groups. There were no significant differences between groups on body weights, food consumption, reproductive data and relative organ/body weights. There were some statistically significant differences in hematology and serum chemistry parameters, but no histological abnormalities were seen in the brain, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, stomach, small intestine, thymus, ovaries, uterus, testes and epididymides. Based on the results, under the circumstance of this study TT51 show no significant differences on reproduction performance of rats compared with MingHui63 and the control.