Metabolic Analysis Reveals Cry1C Gene Transformation Does Not Affect the Sensitivity of Rice to Rice Dwarf Virus.

Xuefei Chang,Duo Ning,Fang Wang,Lijuan Mao,Hongwei Yao,Gongyin Ye,Qi Fang,Beibei Wang

doi:10.3390/metabo11040209

Xuefei Chang, Duo Ning + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo11040209

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Abstract

Metabolomics is beginning to be used for assessing unintended changes in genetically modified (GM) crops. To investigate whether Cry1C gene transformation would induce metabolic changes in rice plants, and whether the metabolic changes would pose potential risks when Cry1C rice plants are exposed to rice dwarf virus (RDV), the metabolic profiles of Cry1C rice T1C-19 and its non-Bt parental rice MH63 under RDV-free and RDV-infected status were analyzed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Compared to MH63 rice, slice difference was detected in T1C-19 under RDV-free conditions (less than 3%), while much more metabolites showed significant response to RDV infection in T1C-19 (15.6%) and in MH63 (5.0%). Pathway analysis showed biosynthesis of lysine, valine, leucine, and isoleucine may be affected by RDV infection in T1C-19. No significant difference in the contents of free amino acids (AAs) was found between T1C-19 and MH63 rice, and the free AA contents of the two rice plants showed similar responses to RDV infection. Furthermore, no significant differences of the RDV infection rates between T1C-19 and MH63 were detected. Our results showed the Cry1C gene transformation did not affect the sensitivity of rice to RDV, indicating Cry1C rice would not aggravate the epidemic and dispersal of RDV.

Highlights

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important food crops around the world and serves as a staple food source for more than half of the world’s population [1]
A total of 1054 peaks were primordially detected by Gas Chromatography Tandem Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (GC-TOF-mass spectrometry (MS)), and 920 effective peaks were obtained after normalization
The transcriptomes, proteomes, or metabolomes of different Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) rice events were compared with their non-transgenic parents and other traditional-breeding rice cultivars [17,18,23,39]

Summary

Introduction

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important food crops around the world and serves as a staple food source for more than half of the world’s population [1]. The yield of rice is often affected by insect pests, leading to great economic loss and a threat to food security [2,3]. Genetic engineering technology provides a cost-effective way to develop transgenic insect-resistant rice plants [4]. A series of transgenic rice lines expressing Cry proteins derived from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have been developed to control lepidopteran pests [4,5]. The Chinese government has issued the biosafety certificates of two Cry1Ab/Ac rice lines (Huahui and Bt-Shanyou 63) [5]. Assessments of Bt rice on non-target organisms and the environment have been conducted thoroughly, and negligible adverse effects have been found [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Bt rice is not yet commercially produced largely due to the lack of public acceptance

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