The comparative analysis of agronomic, compositional, and physiological traits of miraculin transgenic tomato in the confined field trial

Abstract

The miraculin transgenic tomato is a genetically modified (GM) crop that can be used as an alternative for low calories food and a natural non-sugar sweetener. Before the release and distribution, transgenic crop needs to go through an environmental risk assessment (ERA) as a backbone to achieve biosafety. Comparative analysis is a general principle of ERA to identify differences between transgenic crop and its non-transgenic counterpart which may indicate substantial equivalence and unintended effects. This experiment was aimed to compare the agronomic, compositional, and physiological characteristics of miraculin transgenic tomato cv. Moneymaker with non-transgenic tomato. The data obtained were plant height, stem diameter, relative growth rate, chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, days to 50% flowering, days to fruit maturity, a number of flowers per cluster, a number of fruits per cluster, a number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit diameter, harvest index, total dissolved solids, fructose, glucose, and sucrose contents, and total carotenoids, lycopene, and β-carotene contents. This study found that there were no significant differences between miraculin transgenic and non-transgenic tomato in all variables observed. It suggests that miraculin transgenic tomato is equivalent to its counterpart and unintended effects are not detected as.