title: Metabolic changes in transgenic maize mature seeds over-expressing the Aspergillus niger phyA2.
abstract: Non-targeted metabolomics analysis revealed only intended metabolic changes in transgenic maize over-expressing the Aspergillus niger phyA2. Genetically modified (GM) crops account for a large proportion of modern agriculture worldwide, raising increasingly the public concerns of safety. Generally, according to substantial equivalence principle, if a GM crop is demonstrated to be equivalently safe to its conventional species, it is supposed to be safe. In this study, taking the advantage of an established non-target metabolomic profiling platform based on the combination of UPLC-MS/MS with GC-MS, we compared the mature seed metabolic changes in transgenic maize over-expressing the Aspergillus niger phyA2 with its non-transgenic counterpart and other 14 conventional maize lines. In total, levels of nine out of identified 210 metabolites were significantly changed in transgenic maize as compared with its non-transgenic counterpart, and the number of significantly altered metabolites was reduced to only four when the natural variations were taken into consideration. Notably, those four metabolites were all associated with targeted engineering pathway. Our results indicated that although both intended and non-intended metabolic changes occurred in the mature seeds of this GM maize event, only intended metabolic pathway was found to be out of the range of the natural metabolic variation in the metabolome of the transgenic maize. Therefore, only when natural metabolic variation was taken into account, could non-targeted metabolomics provide reliable objective compositional substantial equivalence analysis on GM crops.
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.|Jiangxi Provincial Cancer Hospital, No. 519 East Beijing Road, Nanchang, 330029, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.
authors.forename: Litao
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.
authors.forename: Jinchao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.|Shanghai Ruifeng Agro-biotechnology Co. Ltd, No 233 Rushan Rd., Shanghai, 200120, China.
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Quan
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.
authors.forename: Guihua
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Departmen of Life Science, Huaiyin Normal College, Huaian, 223300, China.
authors.forename: Xiangxiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China.|School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5064, Australia.
authors.forename: Dabing
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, SJTU-University of Adelaide Joint Centre for Agriculture and Health, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD., Minghan District, Shanghai, 200240, China. jianxin.shi@sjtu.edu.cn.|Shanghai Ruifeng Agro-biotechnology Co. Ltd, No 233 Rushan Rd., Shanghai, 200120, China. jianxin.shi@sjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jianxin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D010832:6-Phytase / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D001234:Aspergillus niger / Q000235:genetics*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D012639:Seeds / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry; D003313:Zea mays / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D010832:6-Phytase
keywords: GC–MS; Phytase; Safety assessment; Substantial equivalence; Transgenic; UPLC-MS/MS