Estudi de les diferències entre blat de moro modificat genèticament i convencional mitjançant proteòmica

Abstract

The number of studies related to genetically modified crops and assessment of potential unintended effects/unexpected produced by transgene insertion, has increased during the last years. This study is part of a project entitled G-TwYST that aims to evaluate the food safety of GM plants. The study examines the use of techniques “-omics”, specifically proteomics, to evaluate the differences between the maize proteomes of herbicide glyphosate resistant varieties (NK603) and their corresponding conventional varieties. Bioinformatics and statistical analysis of proteomes obtained from maize grain samples from different companies (Prairie Brand varieties 882 and Pioneer varieties 8906) was carried to compare protein profiles between conventional maize and their respective transgenic varieties. Two-dimensional gels obtained using 2D-PAGE electrophoresis (previously obtained by the research group) were the starting point for the image analysis. Comparing the images of 2D-gels by bioinformatics proteins analysis, 1139 proteins were detected and quantified. The comprehensive comparison of spots has determined that there are not important differences at protein level between modified and conventional varieties. In contrast, 26 differential proteins were detected between the conventional varieties obtained from different companies and therefore with different genetic background. In addition, the principal component analysis confirms that the highest percentage of variability is associated specifically to natural variation between different conventional species of maize and does not belong to insertion and/or expression of transgene. To summarize, the results of the study have shown that there is an influence caused by the environment and natural variety and that GM NK603 maize has not caused unintended effects on the PMG’s proteome