Taiwanese scientists have created a genetically modified rice strain that contains 25 to 30 percent more vitamin B1 without diminishing yield, research project head Hsieh Ming-hsiun (謝明勳) said.
The research, which involves splicing genes that govern vitamin production in Escherichia coli with Taiwan’s indigenously developed rice variety Tainun 67, was published in The Plant Journal in November last year.
White rice, which is consumed as a staple food in most of East Asia, is produced by removing the bran and germ from the grain through polishing, said Hsieh, a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology.
Photo: Taipei Times file
Unfortunately, the parts removed in the polishing process are also the main store of gluten and vitamin B1 in the grain, resulting in a loss of essential nutrition, he said.
Brown rice, which retains the bran and germs, is more nutritious than polished rice, but its rough texture is considered displeasing by most people, he said.
To improve public health and well-being, the research team headed by Hsieh sought to boost the vitamin B content in rice via genetic manipulation, he said, adding that the project took five years to complete.
A significant challenge that the team overcame was ensuring the designed crop had a high enough yield to make planting economically viable, he said.
Three years ago, a group of Dutch scientists had created gene-modified rice that contained two to three times the vitamin B of normal rice, but the variety’s poor yield prevented commercial success, he said.
The Academia Sinica team’s creation, which features an
identical yield to its parent variety, stores vitamin B1 in the grain itself, allowing the rice to be polished without losing nutritional value, he said.
Vitamin B1 deficiency could cause many conditions including swelling in the lower limbs, numbness, nerve damage, enlarged heart and digestive problems, Hsieh said, citing data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Taiwanese for the most part are free of vitamin B deficiency and cultivating genetically modified crops is prohibited by law, but the rice the team designed could still be useful for poor countries with a rice-dominant diet, he said.
The team is continuing work to increase the variety’s vitamin content and palatability, he said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS