Protein Packed Potatoes

by Janine Weber



I found an article from The Globe and Mail about genetically modifying potatoes to significantly increase the amount of protein and amino acids. It was based on a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The potatoes were injected with a gene from amaranth, a broadleaf plant with lots of protein and important amino acids. The scientific paper explains why amaranth was chosen as the donor for the genes, and gives every result from the experiments. The only thing the newspaper says about the safety of the modified potatoes is that they “had been fed to rats and rabbits with no adverse consequences” (Lyn 2010). The scientific paper, on the other hand, tells the dosage of potato the animals received, and every single potential health issue the scientists investigated. For example, the potatoes were found to be nonirritating to skin and to the vaginal mucous membrane, nontoxic, safe for the blood, liver, heart, kidney, stomach, and lungs. The rabbits and rats had normal plasma protein, sugar, and urea levels, and showed no sign of ulcer or bleeding. The newspaper really missed a lot of the details by just saying there were no consequences.

The scientific paper gives a lot of evidence to show that the protein levels actually increased, unlike the newspaper which just states that it did. It says that a 2D Electrophoresis Analysis was performed to prove that there were “more than 90% high-quality protein spots and had a correlation coefficient of variation above 0.8, suggesting high reproducibility amount the replicates” (Lyn 2010). Tests were even executed to see if the transgenic potatoes had the same cooking quality as normal potatoes. The scientific paper says they tested for dry matter, specific gravity, and viscosity. The transgenic potatoes did very well in these tests as the “specific gravity of most of the transgenic lines was found to be 1.68-6.86% higher, indicating better quality” (Chakraborty et al. 2010) and “upon frying showed less browning with higher firmness after boiling, suggesting better palatability” (Chakraborty et al. 2010). In the end it was determined that “enhanced protein content in transgenic potatoes neither changed pasting temperature nor increased peak viscosity to affect crispiness and texture of fried potatoes” (Chakraborty et al. 2010). The scientists really did every test necessary to ensure quality and safety wasn’t being compromised by genetically modifying the potatoes, and the journal expresses this. The newspaper does not even bother to mention anything about the quality, because it is just a summary and it chooses what is important to publish and what is not.

The scientific journal goes through the thought process of the scientists and tells both what worked in the experiments and what did not work. It even mentions past efforts which failed, and how they effected new efforts. For example it says that Brazil nut and sunflower seed have been used to try “to increase the nutritive value of transgenic crops. However, these attempts were not successful because, when introduced in target plants, the transgene resulted in a dramatic increase only in methionine along with a significant decrease in cysteine” (Chakraborty et al. 2010). The newspaper obviously would not bother to write this because it isn’t directly related to the story. The newspaper’s goal is to get the facts out in the quickest way possible.

Another comparison between these two writings is the use of diagrams and pictures and graphs. The scientific paper uses five in total to help compare normal and transgenic potatoes, explain what is being written about, and to give evidence. The newspaper does not present any illustrations, because they are unnecessary. The main goal of the newspaper isn’t to get the general public to understand the details and process, it’s to get the main points, like I said earlier. It is therefore unnecessary to include a picture of proteins extracted from the two different potatoes, although it is very useful in a scientific paper.

Another difference I noticed between these two papers is the structure the information is laid out in. The scientific paper has long comprehensive paragraphs, and the newspaper has very short paragraphs, some of them being just one sentence. It is very jumpy and general. For example, the second last paragraph reads “These had been fed to rats and rabbits with no adverse consequences, the scientists said (Lyn 2010)”, and the last paragraph reads “More than a billion people worldwide consume potatoes daily” (Lyn 2010). It seems like the newspaper is seriously dumbing down the information from the scientific paper, and skipping everything that is harder to grasp. I think the newspaper is doing what is necessary to please the consumer by keeping it short and sweet. The general public doesn’t need, and doesn’t want, to know the procedure to insert foreign genes into a potato. But if someone was really interested to know, they could look it up in the scientific journal.

Reference list:

Chakraborty, Subhra, and Niranjan Chakraborty. "Next-generation Protein-rich Potato Expressing the Seed Protein Gene AmA1 Is a Result of Proteome Rebalancing in Transgenic Tuber." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2010): 1-6. 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 21 Sept. 2010.

"Food of the Future-The Potato!" Solcomhouse. The British Antarctic Study. Web. 24 Sept. 2010.

Lyn, Tan Ee. "Indian Scientists Develop Protein-packed Potatoes." The Globe
and Mail. 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 21 Sept. 2010.