Iron fortification of rice seed by the soybean ferritin gene

• DOI: 10.1038/7029
• Publication Date: 2002-07-26T08:48:26Z
• Authors: Fumiyuki Goto; Toshihiro Yoshihara; Naoki Shigemoto; Seiichi Toki; Fumio Takaiwa
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 2. Zero hunger; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Iron; Blotting, Western; Gene Expression; Oryza; Plants, Genetically Modified; Immunohistochemistry; Blotting, Southern; 03 medical and health sciences; Transformation, Genetic; Ferritins; Tissue Distribution

To improve the iron content of rice, we have transferred the entire coding sequence of the soybean ferritin gene into Oryza sativa (L. cv. Kita-ake) by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The rice seed-storage protein glutelin promoter, GluB-1, was used to drive expression of the soybean gene specifically in developing, self-pollinated seeds (T1 seeds) of transgenic plants, as confirmed by reverse transcription PCR analysis. Stable accumulation of the ferritin subunit in the rice seed was demonstrated by western blot analysis, and its specific accumulation in the endosperm by immunologic tissue printing. The iron content of T1 seeds was as much as threefold greater than that of their untransformed counterparts.