How could this new variety of rice reduce disease in developing countries? Absor

Question

How could this new variety of rice reduce disease in developing countries? Absorption of vitamin A requires sufficient dietary fat. Explain how this could be problematic for the targeted use of golden rice in developing countries: As well as increasing nutrient content as in golden rice, other traits of crop plants are also desirable. For each of the following traits, suggest features that could be desirable in terms of increasing yield: (a) Grain size or number: (b) Maturation rate: (c) Pest resistance:

Explanation / Answer

4 a) Golden rice is a type of rice with biosynthesis of beta-carotene (which is a form of vitamin A), produced with the help of genetic engineering. When a person eats golden rice, the beta-carotene gets stored or accumulated in your fatty tissues or is converted/transformed to form vitamin A.

The benefits of golden rice are as follows:

4b) Beta-carotene is a pro-vitamin. In order to be active, this pro-vitamin needs to be be split by an enzyme in the intestinal mucosa into two molecules of vitamin A. Both vitamin A along with the pro-vitamin are fat-soluble and also requires dietary fat for absorption.

This indicates the fact that digestion, absorption, and transportation of beta-carotene requires a functional digestive tract, adequate/proper fat and protein storage or within the diet. Many humans exhibiting vitamin A deficiency, are generally observed to suffer from malnutrition and intestinal problems such as infections. These factors are seen to interfere with the splitting of vitamin A and absorption of beta-carotene. In developing countries vitamin A deficiency is observed to be endemic due to poverty. Also, factors such as illiteracy often leads to belief that certain food sources of beta-carotene are inappropriate for young children, and hence are not cooked enough to be digestible. The diet of poor children suffering from Vitamin A deficiency also are not accompanied by enough dietary fat for absorption by the body. Hence, biological, cultural, and dietary factors act as barriers to the use of golden rice with beta-carotene. This is the reason for use of injections or supplements of pre-formed vitamin A in the developing countries. .

5 a) Many key genetic and molecular regulators of growth or yield component traits, especially the seed size and the number, have been identified. Some of these regulators are Gn1a and Ghd7, which control rice grain number. On the other hand,GW2 and qSW5 affect the grain size. All these factors have all shown the potential for increasing overall yield

5 b) Plants that are selected for longer coleoptile growth are done by selection of certain semi dwarf wheat populations. These plants tend to have faster initial growth and better crop establishment also ensures better growth of plants. Also genetic modification to ensure more efficient usage of water is by methods to reduce the amount of transpiration, and by methods to decrease the cuticular water loss. This gives the trait of drought resistance and a better growth

5 c) BT rice is genetically modified such that to express the cryIA(b) gene thereby of the Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria i.e production of the cry protein. The benefit of BT rice with the cry protein is the fact that farmers don’t have to spray their crops with pesticides to control fungal, viral, or bacterial pathogens. This is because the gene confers resistance to many of pests such as the rice borer by endotoxins production, which kills the pest.

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