title: Safety assessment for genetically modified sweet pepper and tomato.
abstract: The coat protein (CP) gene of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) was cloned from a Chinese CMV isolate, the CaMV promoter and NOS terminator added and the gene construct was transformed into both sweet pepper and tomato plants to confer resistance to CMV. Safety assessments of these genetically modified (GM) plants were conducted. It was found that these two GM products showed no genotoxicity either in vitro or in vivo by the micronucleus test, sperm aberration test and Ames test. Animal feeding studies showed no significant differences in growth, body weight gain, food consumption, hematology, blood biochemical indices, organ weights and histopathology between rats or mice of either sex fed with either GM sweet pepper or tomato diets compared with those with non-GM diets. These results demonstrate that the CMV-resistant sweet pepper and tomato are comparable to the non-GM counterparts in terms of food safety.
authors.affiliation: The National Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. zhchen@pku.edu.cn
authors.forename: Zhang-Liang
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hongya
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yilan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Zhicheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Xiaotian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ming
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Naisui
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Li-Jia
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Qu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002212:Capsicum / Q000235:genetics*; D017799:Cucumovirus / Q000235:genetics; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D030841:Food, Genetically Modified / Q000633:toxicity*; D007928:Lethal Dose 50; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D015162:Micronucleus Tests; D009152:Mutagenicity Tests; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000254:growth & development*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000002:abnormalities