A new discovery is creating a lot of interest gene editing. CRISPR is a technology that allows scientists to make precise changes in genetic code. To find out more about this scientific discovery and its potential uses, Best Food Facts asked blogger Lynne Feifer of 365 Days of Baking to bring her passion for food into the research lab and explore CRISPR technology.

Lynne interviewed Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou in his laboratory at North Carolina State University. “I tend to think of myself as a CRISPR expert and CRISPR enthusiast, as well as a food scientist,” he said.

Lynne asked Dr. Barrangue to explain what CRISPR is.

“CRISPR is actually an acronym, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. It’s a very cumbersome name arguably, but at the same time a very catchy and easy to remember acronym,” he said.

Dr. Barrangou explained that this gene-editing technology works much like a text editor that changes a letter in a word.

“CRISPR in many ways is a molecular scalpel that enables scientists to cut DNA. You can very precisely, very selectively, very efficiently cut DNA. That’s what geneticists do. They find a particular sentence that is unique in the book of life in the DNA code of any particular cell, look for the mistake and then replace this mistake and edit it out with this corrected version,” he explained.

There are many ways that it can be used.

“It’s a question of when, not if, CRISPR-based technologies solve the biggest challenge of medicine, things like curing HIV, curing Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, curing cancer, curing people who are sick,” Dr. Barrangou said.

Lynne looked further into the potential for CRISPR as it relates to treating disease and making food healthier. Check out the other videos in the series: How Can CRISPR Treat Disease? and How Can CRISPR Improve Food?

The post What is CRISPR Technology? Part 1 appeared first on Best Food Facts.

CRISPR is a precise gene-editing tool that has potential to treat diseases in humans and animals. Blogger Lynne Feifer of 365 Days of Baking helped Best Food Facts find out more about this technology and how it can be used.

“This is such a powerful, potent promising technology. We have so much at stake here in food and ag for animals and plants, agriculture, biotechnology, biofuels, medicine, the clinic translational medicine to cure disease and feed the world,” said Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou, whom Lynne interviewed at his lab at North Carolina State University.

One possible application for CRISPR is in treating sickle cell, an inherited disease. The disease affects 100,000 people in the United States and is most common among African-Americans. Dr. Nazia Tabassum is a pediatric specialist who treats sickle cell patients.

“Some of the patients come in for severe complications like severe pain crisis which requires IV narcotics and hydration. Some of these kids can also have severe sickling in their lungs which we call acute chest syndrome, which is a medical emergency,” she said.

Lynne had planned to interview Shakir Cannon, who had battled sickle cell disease his entire life and was a passionate advocate for CRISPR technology. However, he passed away in December 2017.

CRISPR also has potential to ease suffering and cure diseases among animals. Lynne talked to Erin Brenneman, a pig farmer in Iowa who said they are interested in how CRISPR might cure a disease called PRRS. “The acronym PRRS stands for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. It is the most economically and emotionally draining disease for all those raising pigs in North America, Europe and Asia,” Brenneman said.

She said pig farmers are excited about the potential for PRRS to cure the disease.

Check out the other videos in the series What is CRISPR? and How Can CRISPR Improve Food?

The post How Can CRISPR Treat Disease? Part 2 appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Blogger Lynne Feifer of 365 Days of Baking has been learning about CRISPR gene-editing technology and its potential. Lynne is usually in her kitchen stirring up new recipes, so she was very interested to learn how CRISPR might be applied to make foods better. She started her journey with Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou who explained how this gene-editing tool works in Part 1. Part 2 looked at how CRISPR could treat disease.

“As a food blogger, I get a lot of my followers coming to me asking for diabetic recipes, gluten-free recipes, allergenic recipes. How does CRISPR fit into that?” Lynne asked.

“Enter CRISPR to the rescue,” Dr. Barrangou said. “If you are allergic or if you don’t like this particular compound in this particular trait, we can inactivate it. We can make gluten-free wheat. We can make hypoallergenic nuts. If we know what the gene is, we can take it out or turn it off or turn it down.”

That’s exactly what Dr. Jessica Lyons and her team are researching at the University of California Berkeley. Their research is focused on using CRISPR technology to remove a deadly compound in the cassava plant, which is also known as yucca.

“Cassava is a really important staple crop for about 800 million people in tropical and subtropical regions of the world,” Dr. Lyons said. She noted that stunting in children under age 5 caused by malnourishment is prevalent in the regions where cassava is widely consumed. However, the plant contains compounds that can cause people to be poisoned from cyanide if the root has not been sufficiently processed.

“If people are relying on cassava and they’re ingesting the cyanide over time, they can get these neurological disorders. The best known one is called konzo and it causes paralysis of the lower extremities,” Dr. Lyons said. “For people who eat plenty of protein in their diet, the cyanide is not as much of a threat. But for people who don’t have much to eat besides cassava, then the cyanide poisoning is more of a threat.”

In the lab, she is working to remove the compounds that cause poisoning.

“We’re going to use CRISPR as a tool to knock out some genes that are very important for the pathway that result in these cyanogenic glucosides. We expect that by knocking these genes out, we’ll remove the cyanogenic glucosides from the root and so the cassava will not release the cyanide any more,” Dr. Lyons said.

Lynne observed that Dr. Lyons is very passionate about the project and asked why. “I’ve been the recipient of a great deal of privilege in my life and I’m aware of that. I think that my work on projects like this are a great opportunity to use the knowledge and the resources and skills that I have to have a positive impact on the world,” she said.

Lynne said her experiences learning about CRISPR had been enlightening.

“After my series of conversations with researchers, it is clear to me CRISPR technology has the potential to make a positive impact on the world in human medicine, disease prevention and food improvements –- and that’s only a few of the possibilities,” she said.

The other videos in the series are What is CRISPR Technology? and How Can CRISPR Treat Disease?

The post How Can CRISPR Improve Food? Part 3 appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Arctic Apple is a trade name for a type of fruit that does not turn brown when exposed to air. Shoppers can buy packages of sliced Arctic Golden apples. The developer, Okanagan of British Columbia, Canada, released the apple in 2016 to a few stores in the Midwest. It will now be available at 400 stores throughout the Midwest and Southern California.

The fruit is interesting because it was created through genetic engineering. We got in touch with Dr. Sally Mackenzie at the Center for Plant Innovation at the University of Nebraska and Dr. Patrick Byrne, professor of plant breeding and genetics at Colorado State University, to peel back the layers and find out what’s underneath this apple.

How Does It Work?

“Arctic Apples are the first genetically engineered food in the US to use gene silencing via RNA interference to reduce production of a naturally occurring protein,” Dr. Byrne said. “In the case of Arctic Apples, the protein whose production is reduced is polyphenol oxidase (PPO), an enzyme responsible for oxidizing phenolic compounds and causing a browning reaction in apples after slicing or bruising.”

Dr. Mackenzie explained that scientists used a technology known as RNA interference to turn off a specific gene. “The gene that is being silenced in the apple is a polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that participates in the oxidation process that causes browning and off flavor,” she said.

This infographic shows why fruit turns brown when exposed to oxygen. To “turn off” the enzyme, scientists developed a gene construction that the cell recognizes so that the targeted gene is affected.

“What is important to understand is that we are introducing segments of the plant’s own gene to trigger this targeting. Therefore, we are not introducing foreign DNA, but the plant’s own DNA to cause the change,” she said.

This process is “cisgenic” gene editing and is not the same as “transgenic” technology which introduces DNA from a different organism. That process has been used in GMO plants which farmers have grown for many years.

“This differs from genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant corn, soybeans, and canola, in which a protein-encoding gene from another organism was introduced into plant cells and the novel protein is produced in the plant,” Dr. Byrne said.

Is It Safe?

Dr. Mackenzie emphasized that there are no health concerns with any GMO foods.

“In fact, transgenic technologies on the market have a perfect record for food safety, without a single documented incident of health concern as a consequence of GM technologies. The Arctic Apple presents no health concerns to date that could be reasoned from its design,” she said.

The FDA approved both the Golden Delicious and Granny Smith varieties of Arctic Apples. Foods derived from genetically engineered plants must meet the same legal and safety standards as foods derived from traditional plant breeding methods.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration evaluated extensive information provided by the crop’s developer, Okanagan Specialty Fruits. It found that differences in compositional analysis between Arctic and conventional apples ‘were small and would not adversely affect the nutritional quality of the apples or raise any safety concerns’,” Dr. Byrne said.

When novel proteins are introduced in foods, there is concern about the potential for allergic reaction, he said. “In this case, the main effect is suppression of a native gene, rather than introduction of a new gene for the non-browning effect. The only new protein expressed is a small amount of the enzyme made by the selectable marker gene, which has previously been found by FDA to pose no food safety concerns,” he said.

What’s Next?

Expect to see more cisgenic foods in the future.

“This product has shown that it is technically feasible to engineer a plant to suppress production of a protein, even for a multi-gene family of proteins like PPO,” Dr. Byrne said.

Dr. Mackenzie predicts a wide range of new products will make use of the technology.

“We will see more varied types of crop improvements and novel traits, since regulations of cisgenic traits are less onerous and so it will be more feasible to introduce improvements to more varied crops and with much more attention to consumer desire rather than profitability,” she said.

The Best Food Facts team got to sample Arctic Apples and you can see what we thought.

As Arctic Apples make their debut in the marketplace, they introduce cisgenic gene editing that uses the plant’s own DNA to express a specific trait. The non-browning apples could be the first of many foods that use this technique.

Originally published Jan. 31, 2017.

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What are some of the health benefits of eating tomatoes?

Alice Henneman, MS, RD: “Tomatoes are one of the richest sources of dietary lycopene. Lycopene may help prevent such cancers as prostate, colorectal and stomach cancer as well as help lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Cooked and canned tomatoes are higher in lycopene than raw tomatoes. Heating tomatoes during cooking, processing or canning increases the absorption of lycopene.

“Tomatoes are a source of potassium, Vitamin A and Vitamin C. Served plain, they are saturated fat- and cholesterol-free, very low in sodium and low in calories.”

What are the different ways to eat tomatoes?

Henneman: “Americans consume three-fourths of their tomatoes in processed form according to USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS).”

The ERS estimates that the largest processed use of tomatoes goes as follows:

• Sauces (35 percent)
• Paste (18 percent)
• Canned whole tomato products (17 percent)
• Ketchup (15 percent)
• Juice (15 percent)
• ERS estimates suggest that about one-third of processed-tomato products are purchased away from home at various foodservice outlets (pizza parlors, for example).

Do homegrown tomatoes have different nutritional value than store bought?

Henneman: “The best answer I have seen to this question is a quote by dietitian Elizabeth Pivonka, former president and CEO of the nonprofit Produce for Better Health Foundation: ‘Still, home-grown produce may have only a slight nutritional advantage over the store-bought kind. What really matters,’ says Pivonka, ‘is that you eat more.’”

Many people think homegrown tomatoes taste better. Why is that?

Henneman: “Homegrown tomatoes are more likely to be picked and eaten at the peak of ripeness.”

If you want to try growing some yourself, here are some words of encouragement. “Start small. Grow what you like. Ask friends and neighbors for hints,” said Dr. Aldwinckle.

What are the best kind of tomatoes to grow yourself?

Dr. Aldwinckle: “There are many, many varieties, but they can be grouped into a few kinds.

Determinate (bush type, after a while plants stop growing more shoots and ripen the tomatoes they’re bearing) and indeterminate (keep growing and producing fruit until frost or diseases take them out). The size of fruit is grape, cherry, small, medium, large. There are also modern and heirloom varieties. I’ve been disappointed with heirlooms, their flavor and texture is no better, usually worse, than modern varieties. [Heirloom] rot quickly, and tend to be less resistant to diseases.”

Why do some tomatoes grow better than others?

Dr. Aldwinckle: “[There are] regular or disease resistant.  Most modern varieties have some resistance, but if you run into serious disease problems, try some of those varieties specifically labeled ‘disease-resistant.’ These types of tomatoes can be easy or hard to get good fruit from, depending largely on the climate, the weather, the genetics of the variety, and the gardener’s skill, probably in that order.”

Do you have any tips or tricks for growing healthy tomatoes?

Dr. Aldwinckle: “Choose healthy well growing plants.  Not too big, about 6 inches high. If possible, select a site where tomatoes have not been grown for 2-3 years.Tthis reduces carry-over of disease. Plant them in a loamy soil with plenty of (dark) organic matter. Space the plants so there will be space between them when mature, so that there can be airflow. Set the plants in the soil so the bottom part of the stem is buried (new roots will sprout and help support the plant.  Water well, and fertilize them with one of those blue soluble fertilizers.  Don’t let them dry out and wilt, keep watering regularly if it’s dry.

“Once the plants are 9 to 12 inches high, use twist-ties to attach them  to a strong cane, or stake, or a length of metal conduit (easy to bash in the ground). Tie them loose enough to allow for growth. The staking will hold the fruit off the soil, where they can pick up disease, stay wet, and rot.  It also makes picking a lot easier.”

Now that we know how to grow them, how do we keep our tomato plants healthy?

Dr. Aldwinckle: “Staking to keep fruit off the ground, and spacing to allow airflow to dry out the leaves and fruit after rain and dew will also help reduce diseases.  I never spray.  By the time you think you’ve got a big problem and wonder what to spray, it’s usually too late for any spray to have any useful effect.  And who wants chemicals on their tomatoes anyway?”

We’re ready to see your picture-worthy tomato plants turn into even better recipes. To help you find inspiration for your tomato-based meals, we created a Pinterest board for you.

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