Golden bananas for Africa and Asia

Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities

Golden bananas for Africa and Asia

D/Prof James Dale

Director, Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

BIRAC 1st Foundation Day & Grand Challenges MeetingMarch, 2013


Micronutrient deficiencies

o third most important public health problem worldwide after HIV/AIDS and malaria (WHO)

o disproportionately affects developing countries

o vitamin A, iron, zinc, iodine and folic acid


Vitamin A deficiency

VAD: mortality, blindness, night blindness, impaired immunity system, impaired brain development


Anaemiaprimarily iron deficiency anaemia


Strategies to overcome micronutrient deficiencies

Food aid

Supplements

Food fortification

Changing diets and crops

Biofortification of staple cropso By conventional breeding

o By genetic modification


Annual Banana ProductionMillion metric tonnes

India 26.2

Uganda 10.5

Philippines 9.0

China 8.2

Ecuador 7.6

Brazil 7.2

Indonesia 6.3

Mexico 2.2

Costa Rica 2.1

Colombia 2.0

Thailand 1.5

Non-export countries in bold


BiofortificationBill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Grand Challenge in Global Health No.9: creating staple crops with a complete set of micronutrients

Banana21

BioCassava Plus

Golden Rice

Super Sorghum


The aim of this program is to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies, particularly vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA), in Uganda through the micronutrient enhancement of the staple food of Uganda, bananas

Ugandans eat on average nearly 0.5kg bananas per person per day: East African Highland bananas, Sukali Ndizi and beer bananas

Other East African countries also have high consumption of bananas: Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Kenya

There high consumption levels of cooked bananas in West Africa where plantains are a staple

Banana21: a collaboration between QUT, Australia and NARO, Uganda

Banana21Development of bananas with optimised

bioavailable micronutrients


The strategy for vitamin A enhancement of banana fruit

Increase the amount of β-carotene in banana fruit by genetic modification

β-carotene is converted into vitamin A or retinol in the human liver

Humans only convert the amount of vitamin A that is required (can’t overdose)

β-carotene is orange coloured


Our banana biofortification targetfor Uganda

20µg/g dwtβ-carotene

equivalents

Estimated Average Requirement (EAR)

Bioconversion ofβ-carotene to

retinol

Daily consumption (children v adults)

Processing losses(cooking: steaming)


The metabolic pathway to produce carotene in plants

The Golden Rice strategy: seed expression of ZmPsy1

and CrtI

Taken from Salim Al-Babili and Peter

Beyer 2005


Cultivar Fleshcolour

trans β-carotene

cisβ-carotene

α-carotene

β-caroteneequivalent

s

Asupina Orange 56.5 1.3 11.8 63.7

LadyFinger

Cream 3.8 0.7 5.3 7.1

Cavendish Cream 2.3 0.3 4.3 4.8

Carotenoid content of selected ripe raw banana cultivars (μg/g edible portion)

GGPP

Phytoene

Lycopene

⟨+β-carotene

psy1

crt I + transit peptide

psy2a

Maize B73

Asupina

Proposed genetic modification of β-carotene pathway in

banana

(Pro-vitamin A)


The Strategy• 16 different promoter/GUS constructs tested in

the field

• 3 PVA transgenes x 4 promoters alone or in all combinations

• 30 transgenic events per cassette

• One plant per transgenic event

• Field testing without prior glasshouse characterisation

• 1290 individual transgenic events


First Australian GM Banana Field TrialNorth Queensland


Phase 1 promoters and transgenes

Transgenes

o Apsy2a

o ZmPsy1

o CrtI

Promoters

o Exp1

o ACO

o Ubi

o BT4


ACO/Exp1/Ubi/BT4>PVA BCE selected lines

Plant crop

Promoter-Transgene/s BCE (ug/g DW) FG stage

BCE (ug/g DW) FR stage

Control Cavendish line 1.35 1.54

Exp1-APsy2a 8.64 9.96

ACO-APsy2a 15.34

Exp1-Apsy2a+Ubi-CrtI 2.28 2.26

Exp1-ZmPsy1+Ubi-CrtI 1.42 2.78

Ubi -APsy2a 19.09 16.10

Ubi-ZmPsy1 13.55 16.11

BT4-ZmPsy1 9.84 8.40


BCE levels in Ratoon Crop

Promoter-Transgene BCE (ug/g DW)

Pulp FG stage

BCE (ug/g DW)

Pulp FR stage

Control Cavendish line 1.8 1.7

Exp1-ZmPsy1 9.5 9.9

ACO-ZmPsy1 7.3 6.6

ACO-APsy2a 12.1 11.7

Ubi-ZmPsy1 24.3 21.8

Ubi-ZmPsy1 40.5 39.3

Ubi-APsy2a 13.5 12.0

Ubi-Apsy2a 26.6 33.4


phytoene synthase

Control1.25 ug/g DW BCE

Exp1>Apsy2a9.96 ug/g DW BCE

Ubi>Apsy2a16.10 ug/g DW BCE


Major outcomes

• lines with greater than target level of PVA

• all four promoters tested gave lines with significantly elevated PVA content

• in all direct comparisons, APsy2a performed better than ZmPsy1

• APsy2a is differently regulated to ZmPsy1(B73) in bananas

• Ubi>APsy2a and ACO>APsy2a to be transformed into East African Highland banana and M9 for elite line selection


UgandaEAHB

Sukali Ndizi

QUTCavendishLady finger

Genes

Transformation

Analysis

Field Trials

Transformation

Analysis

Field trials

Pro-vit A Iron

Made in Uganda

Pro-vit A Iron

Continuous technology

transfer

Feeding trials

Steward-ship


Some key points:

• The target countries in Africa are Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Congo and India

• Our target population in Africa is 125 million people

• Our release date is 2019 in Africa

• Collaboration, technology transfer and education are the key components


QUT

NABI

TNAU

BARC

NRCBIIHR

BIRAC

BIRAC/QUT Agreement

October, 2012


We’ve got great supporters!

Cairns, December, 2011

Supporters

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

BIRAC

Australian Research Council

Queensland University of Technology

Collaborators

Queensland University of Queensland, Australia

National Agricultural Research Organisation, Uganda

India: NABI, BARC, TNAU, IIHR and NRCB

Documents

Golden bananas for Africa and Asia