Biotech soybean prevents allergic reactions
allergic reactions in some children and adults, US Agriculture
Department scientists said yesterday.
Soybeans are being developed to turn off a protein that triggers allergic reactions in some children and adults, US Agriculture Department scientists said yesterday.
The new genetically altered soybean could eventually mean that many soy-sensitive consumers will be able to eat cereals, baby formula, snack foods, salad dressings and other foods containing the protein-rich oilseed, according to researchers with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service and the University of Arkansas.
Worldwide, six to eight per cent of children and one to two per cent of adults suffer from food allergies, mostly from soybeans, milk, eggs, peanuts, nuts, fish and wheat. Allergic reactions range from from itching and diarrhoea to life-threatening anaphylactic shock.
Of the soy-related allergies, more than half are linked to a protein known as P34. Researcher Eliot Herman, a USDA plant physiologist, said he has developed a strain of soybean plants in which the P34 protein is shut off.
Herman said field trials begun in 2001 indicate the modified beans have similar crop qualities of yield, pest resistance, oil composition and other criteria important to farmers and food processors.
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a unit of DuPont, is field testing the new soybeans in Hawaii, where the climate allows for two test crops per year.
This summer, the USDA researchers began feeding the new soybeans to baby pigs to compare the animals' reactions to those fed unaltered beans. The study, which includes skin-prick allergenicity tests, is being led by Rick Helm, an immunologist at the University of Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute.
"We'll use unaltered soybeans versus the knockout soybeans to see what allergic reactions occur in the animals," Helm said. "Because this seems to be a food allergy problem, it should be manageable by getting rid of whatever the pigs are allergic to."
Information from the pig studies could lead to clinical trials with humans, according to the USDA.
Soybean crops in the US generated about $12 billion in sales during 2000. Soy is also widely used in fast food frying and to make tofu and soymilk.
