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Increased bioavailable vitamin B6 in field-grown transgenic cassava for dietary sufficiency

Nature Biotechnology volume 33, pages 1029–1032 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Vitamin B6 deficiency is associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological diseases1 and nodding syndrome (NS, a childhood condition in eastern Africa2). Pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP), the cofactor form of vitamin B6, is required for multiple essential enzymatic reactions and other forms of vitamin B6, such as pyridoxine and pyridoxamine, inhibit oxygen radical production, pathogenic glycation and lipid peroxidation3,4. Notably, investigation of the causes of NS has revealed a high prevalence of vitamin B6 deficiencies in affected African populations2,5,6. Humans cannot synthesize vitamin B6 de novo, so this micronutrient is obtained from food by intestinal absorption7. In this Correspondence, we report biofortification of cassava Manihot esculenta Crantz with vitamin B6 using transgenes from Arabidopsis thaliana.

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Figure 1: Genetic engineering of vitamin B6.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from ETH Zurich, the University of Geneva, the Swiss National Science Foundation (project 31003A_140911) and the Earmarked Fund for the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-12-shzp). We thank S. Klarer and I. Zurkirchen (ETH Zurich) for special care of the cassava plants. We are grateful to M. de Meyer (University of Geneva) and M. Bosma (University of Utrecht) for assistance with the microbial assays and the Caco-2 cell assay, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Kuan-Te Li, Nathalie Mangel, Wilhelm Gruissem & Hervé Vanderschuren

  2. Department of Botany and Plant Biology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Michael Moulin & Teresa B Fitzpatrick

  3. Department of Medical Genetics, University Medical Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Monique Albersen & Nanda M Verhoeven-Duif

  4. SIBS-ETH Shanghai Center for Cassava Biotechnology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Qiuxiang Ma, Peng Zhang & Wilhelm Gruissem

  5. AgroBioChem Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Hervé Vanderschuren

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  1. Kuan-Te Li
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  2. Michael Moulin
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  6. Qiuxiang Ma
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  8. Teresa B Fitzpatrick
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  10. Hervé Vanderschuren
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Teresa B Fitzpatrick, Wilhelm Gruissem or Hervé Vanderschuren.

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Supplementary Figures 1–8, Supplementary Materials and Methods and Supplementary Tables 1–5 (PDF 6652 kb)

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Li, KT., Moulin, M., Mangel, N. et al. Increased bioavailable vitamin B6 in field-grown transgenic cassava for dietary sufficiency. Nat Biotechnol 33, 1029–1032 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3318

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