title: Effects of dietary transgenic poplar leaf pellets on performance and tissues in rabbits.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Various studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect of Bt crops on animals. Insect-resistant bioassays have revealed that the chitinase-BmkIT combination could be used as a new pest-resistant gene source and might be a complementary alien gene source to the Bt toxin gene. So it is necessary to assay the effects of chitinase-BmkIT plants on animals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forty 40-day old New Zealand White Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were fed for 60 consecutive days with formulated feed containing dehydrated poplar (Populus cathayana Rehd) leaves harbouring chitinase-BmkIT gene combination or untransformed counterparts, and the potential toxicological effects of transgenic leaves on rabbits were explored. The results of the growth study revealed no significant differences for daily weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio where they were 101.6%, 99.2% and 97.8% of the treatment compared to the control, respectively. No obvious pathological change was observed in the small intestine, stomach, spleen, kidney, lung, heart, bladder, pancreas, prostate and ovary. Electron microscopy observations of liver cells and renal cells showed they were both normal in the two groups. No feed-derived chitinase, BmkIT and NPTII genes were found in small intestine, blood, or leg muscle samples although they were detected in the formulated feed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the processed poplar leaves with foreign chitinase-BmkIT genes had no obviously harmful effects on rabbits.
authors.affiliation: Department Life Science, Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, 041004, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Liyan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yixue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yaoshan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hao
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D002688:Chitinases / Q000235:genetics; D004032:Diet; D004435:Eating; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D005260:Female; D030841:Food, Genetically Modified / Q000009:adverse effects*; D007313:Insecta / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D018515:Plant Leaves; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D032107:Populus / Q000235:genetics*; D011817:Rabbits; D012604:Scorpion Venoms / Q000235:genetics; D014018:Tissue Distribution; D015430:Weight Gain
chemical_list: C485978:BmK alphaIT1 toxin, Buthus martensii; D012604:Scorpion Venoms; D002688:Chitinases
keywords: biosafety; feed; rabbit; transgenic poplar