Food and feed safety of DAS-444Ø6-6 herbicide-tolerant soybean

Principles of risk decision-making

Risk management decisions in public health require consideration of a number of complex, often conflicting factors. The aim of this review was to propose a set of 10 fundamental principles to guide risk decision-making. Although each of these principles is sound in its own right, the guidance provided by different principles might lead the decision-maker in different directions. For example, where the precautionary principle advocates for preemptive risk management action under situations of scientific uncertainty and potentially catastrophic consequences, the principle of risk-based decision-making encourages decision-makers to focus on established and modifiable risks, where a return on the investment in risk management is all but guaranteed in the near term. To evaluate the applicability of the 10 principles in practice, one needs to consider 10 diverse risk issues of broad concern and explore which of these principles are most appropriate in different contexts. The 10 principles presented here afford substantive insight into the process of risk management decision-making, although decision-makers will ultimately need to exercise judgment in reaching appropriate risk decisions, accounting for all of the scientific and extra-scientific factors relevant to the risk decision at hand.

Rapid Identification of Soybean Varieties by Terahertz Frequency-Domain Spectroscopy and Grey Wolf Optimizer-Support Vector Machine

Different soybean varieties vary greatly in their nutritional value and composition. Screening for superior varieties is also essential for the development of the soybean seed industry. The objective of the paper was to analyze the feasibility of terahertz (THz) frequency-domain spectroscopy and chemometrics for soybean variety identification. Meanwhile, a grey wolf optimizer-support vector machine (GWO-SVM) soybean variety identification model was proposed. Firstly, the THz frequency-domain spectra of experimental samples (6 varieties, 270 in total) were collected. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the THz spectra. After that, 203 samples from the calibration set were used to establish a soybean variety identification model. Finally, 67 samples from the test set were used for prediction validation. The experimental results demonstrated that THz frequency-domain spectroscopy combined with GWO-SVM could quickly and accurately identify soybean varieties. Compared with discriminant partial least squares (DPLS) and particles swarm optimization support vector machine, GWO-SVM combined with the second derivative could establish a better soybean variety identification model. The overall correct identification rate of its prediction set was 97.01%.

Subchronic toxicity study in rats evaluating herbicide-tolerant soybean DAS-68416-4

A subchronic toxicity study was conducted in Wistar rats to evaluate the potential health effects of genetically modified (GM) herbicide-tolerant soybean DAS-68416-4. Rats were fed with diets containing toasted meal produced from GM soybean engineered with aad-12 and pat genes or containing non-GM soybean at a dose of 30.0, 15.0, or 7.5%,w/w% and 0% (control group) for 90 consecutive days. Animals were evaluated for general behavior, body weight gain, food consumption, food use efficiency, etc. At the middle and end of the study, blood and serum samples were collected for routine and biochemical assays. Internal organs were taken for calculating relative weights and doing histopathological examination. The rats were active and healthy without any abnormal symptoms during the entire study period. No biological differences in hematological or biochemical indices were detected. No histopathological changes were observed. Under the conditions of this study, herbicide-tolerant soybean DAS-68416-4 did not cause any treatment-related effects in Wistar rats following 90 days of dietary administration.

Identification of iron-chelating phenolics contributing to seed coat coloration in soybeans (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) expressing aryloxyalkanoate dioxygenase-12

Soybeans (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) genetically modified to express aryloxyalkanoate dioxygenase-12 (AAD-12), an enzyme that confers resistance to the herbicide 2,4-D, can sometimes exhibit a darker seed coat coloration than equivalent unmodified soybeans. The biochemical basis for this coloration was investigated in a non-commercial transgenic event, DAS-411Ø4-7 that exhibited more pronounced AAD-12-associated seed coat coloration than the commercial event, DAS-444Ø6-6. Analysis of color-enriched seed coat fractions from DAS-411Ø4-7 showed that the color was due to localized accumulation of iron-chelating phenolics, particularly the isoflavone genistin, that are associated with seed coat pectic polysaccharide and produce a brown chromophore. The association between genistin, iron, and pectic polysaccharide was characterized using a variety of analytical methods. Darker seeds from commercial soybean event DAS-444Ø6-6 also show higher genistin content localized to the darker colored portions of the seed coat (with no increase in whole seed genistin levels).