Researchers 'Very Close' to Developing Celiac-safe Wheat

I don't think gmo wheat is going to be accepted so what is the point here. Especially if the flour is still unsuitable for bread. Farmers can just switch to growing a different grain for celiacs. Sorry, but I think this is a waste of research money.

Celiac-safe wheat lines do not exist but will be accepted, when the source of celiac causing indigestible protein fragments from the ~50 gliadin and low molecular weight glutenin proteins have been eliminated from the endosperm of the bread and pasta wheat grains. Different celiac patients are sensitive to different gliadins or low molecular weight glutenins. These have thus to be silenced or eliminated. Baking properties are alone determined by the six high molecular glutenin proteins, which are retained in the grain. Our research has established that gene introduction(s) via transgenic methods, does not influence the expression of the rest of the genes in the genome of a plant, and cause less variation in comparison with conventional breeding methods, where a gene is introduced via crossing into plant genotypes. It is a mistake to talk about gluten-free wheat as gluten comprises all proteins, lipids, fatty acids, starch and cell walls in the grain. Gluten contains 80% of the total 11-13% of proteins stored in a wheat grain. The rest is represented by the other chemical molecules, which are either unaltered or even increased in the prospective wheat celiac safe genotypes. Field planting of “Genetic modified organisms†(gmo), i.e., wheat lines, is permitted with appropriate space planting of the genetic transformants from other varieties upon permits obtained from the relevant US government organization.

Hopefully, the gluten-free wheat will be developed without making it just another risky GMO. I get severe stomach pains, and other symptoms, if I eat any of the current GM foods, and there is no reason to believe that I'll be able to tolerate any future ones. I would try non-GM wheat if can be rendered completely gluten-free.

Most likely you have been testing GM-crops like maize and/or soybean. These transgenic crops are tolerant for herbicides or insect/pest resistance due to the introduction of a protein, which might lead to a reaction in exceptional cases.

Since some celiac patients are sensitive to High Molecular Weight Glutenin, we are producing wheat grains and rice grains that contain Heat-stable (1000C) enzymes that survive baking during bread formation and will upon consumption degrade the celiac inducing proteins of wheat in the stomach and intestine. An added advantage of expressing these natural therapeutic enzymes in wheat grains is to improve the bio-availability of gluten proteins leading to reduced nutritional deficiencies even in healthy individuals.

In another approach we introduce into the wheat genome a hairpin ribonucleic acid (RNA) which occurs naturally in cereals and is destined to be degraded. We target it to the transcripts of celiac inducing proteins.

Even if they remove the gluten, the addictive gliadin proteins that break down into an opiate remain. It is best to stay away from grains and eat a paleolithic diet.

The complex mixture of seed storage proteins known as “glutenâ€, in a single bread wheat variety, is comprised of up to 45 different gliadins, 7–16 low-molecular-weight glutenins and 3–6 high-molecular-weight glutenins. We undertook two different approaches to either eliminate celiac causing gliadin and glutenin protein families by silencing their master regulator responsible for there synthesis and accumulation in wheat grains or detoxify all gluten proteins by expressing gluten degrading enzymes, i.e., ‘glutenases'. Thus, these two approaches take care of celiac causing epitopes (un-digestible protein peptides) derived from both gliadins and glutenins.

Strict adherence to a diet totally devoid of any wheat, barley, rye and oat grains, or specialty foods manufactured for gluten sensitive, intolerant and allergenic individuals has demonstrated to slowly deteriorate gut health of the consumer by its negative influence on gut microbiota (micro-organisms). It has been shown that this type of diet also increases risk of colon cancer in the consumers. It is because of the lack or reduced content of dietary fibers (which are fermented by the gut micro-organisms to generate health beneficial compounds) and bioactive compounds like a number of antioxidants.

One of the dumbest ideas that I can recall hearing about.

“If you were a celiac patient you would not consider you're healing a dumbest ideaâ€.

#1. I am opposed to anything GMO and will do everything I can to avoid it as much as possible.

#2. After working so hard to avoid wheat the very last thing I would want to do is reintroduce it into my diet, celiac safe or not!

 

I sincerely wish that the time and money spent on developing a new strain of wheat would be spent on something medically more important.

There is no reason for you not to avoid genetically modified organisms. But there are 1.5% or more of the populations world-wide that have celiac disease and are seriously disabled by the disease.

That is not the opinion of other celiac patients. Additionally we are working on a project of engineering wheat lines for eliminating immunogenic gluten proteins and increase dietary fiber and lignin content in wheat grain to avoid obesity. This is now possible with the new transgenic technologies.

What good will gluten-free wheat be? Will the wheat flour be any better than rice flour, or buckwheat flour, or quinoa flour without the gluten in it? I doubt it, but I bet it'll cost a lot more!

Stop doing useless research and find a cure for the disease.

Strict adherence to a diet totally devoid of any wheat, barley, rye and oat grains, or specialty foods manufactured for gluten sensitive, intolerant and allergenic individuals has demonstrated to slowly deteriorate gut health of the consumer by its negative influence on gut microbiota (micro-organisms). It has been shown that this type of diet also increases risk of colon cancer in the consumers. It is because of the lack or reduced content of dietary fibers (which are fermented by the gut micro-organisms to generate health beneficial compounds) and bioactive compounds like a number of antioxidants. In view of the above a number of countries recommend a daily bread intake of about 250g-350g (depending on national food habits), whereas the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends eating bread several times per day, which is not possible in case of celiac patients. Thus, it is important to develop celiac safe wheat lines, which are devoid of celiac disease causing protein elements, but retain and/or show compensatory increase in amount of other beneficial molecules. Moreover, some individuals are sensitive to wheat, barley and rye gluten proteins, some to oat proteins. Thus, the logical solution is to make these grains suitable for human consumption and that is what our project is about.

Another emerging problem is the detection of low amount of gluten in the specialty (allegedly ‘gluten-free') foods manufactured for gluten sensitive, intolerant and allergenic individuals using the traditional antibody based kits, which often result in misdiagnosis leading to mislabeling of commodities. The American Dietetic Association recently reported a number of cases where gluten contamination was observed in flours derived from the inherently gluten-free grains (these samples were collected from a number of grocery stores), which impose a threat to the health of consumers due to misbranding. Thus, a general solution will be develop grains naturally devoid of the toxic proteins, and eventually make cultivation of these grains a norm rather than as a specialty crop.

An added advantage of eliminating low molecular weight glutenins and gliadins, which are exceptionally poor in an essential amino acid lysine is the compensatory increase in the amount of lysine rich proteins, which improves the nutritional value of wheat proteins close to milk proteins and also improve their bioavailability. Thus, these changes in protein composition of wheat will not result in reduction of its total grain protein content but will rather improve its nutritive value.

I'd never willingly put this thing in my mouth.

If you mean bread made from celiac safe wheat than you don't need to unless you have developed celiac disease. However we believe that the debate about the transgenics the so called Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) will settle down with time and the GMO's will be accepted without any resistance by the general public. It has happened to all new technologies, including radiation induced mutations, which were first created in 1926 by the Nobelist Dr. Hermann Joseph Muller, and now are widely accepted. But it took 50 years for the general public to accept them though the work of Dr. Ake Gustafsson [mentor of Drs. Robert (Bob) Nilan and Diter von Wettstein]. Similarly the microwave ovens initially received lots of skepticism and are now widely accepted.

It has also been demonstrated by our research on expression profiles of >41,000 genes and >1400 metabolites in the transgenic plants, their parental genotypes, and the lines derived from the cross of parental genotypes, that more variations are introduced in plant genome by crossing in comparison with modifying plants by genetic engineering. Reason behind this difference is reliance of the former procedure on the stochastic natural recombination events whereas the latter process is much more regulated and does not rely on natural recombination. It is clear through the above and the other similar studies that GMOs are nearly isogenic to their parental genotypes, and carry less variations than the lines produced through traditional breeding, thus the myth of them being damaging to our ecosystem are immaterial. The transfer of foreign genes from distantly related organism has also occurred in nature even from organisms as distant as bacteria/Archaea, and is known as ‘horizontal transfer' in scientific language, which means not through a vertical descent. The best the example is the establishment of photosynthetic system in the higher plant. The chloroplast (the food manufacturing unit of plants) and the mitochondria (the powerhouse of the higher organisms) the two vital organelles in a plant cell are considered to be symbionts, who at one time point during the establishment of terrestrial life inhabited the plant cells and later have transferred may vital genes to the plant genome now known as ‘promiscuous DNA'.

Thus, in future, you may consider taking it into your mouth, because disease resistant, climate resistant and herbicide resistant wheat and barley lines will now be made safely with known genes in two years by transgenic procedures instead of 12-14 years by hybridization and selection.

I say why bother. It is gluten that gives bread all its lovliness. Wheat with less/no gluten will produce the same results in bread that we have now with other grains, and that is pretty awful bread...

We are not working on gluten-free wheat, but on celiac safe wheat and wheat with other improved properties.

Celiac-safe wheat lines do not exist but will be accepted, when the source of celiac causing undigestible protein fragments from the ~50 gliadin and low molecular weight glutenin proteins have been eliminated from the endosperm of the bread and pasta wheat grains. Different celiac patients are sensitive to different gliadins or low molecular weight glutenins. These have thus to be silenced or eliminated. Baking properties are alone determined by the six high molecular glutenin proteins, which are retained in the grain. Our research has established that gene introduction(s) via transgenic methods, does not influence the expression of the rest of the genes in the genome of a plant, and cause less variation in comparison with conventional breeding methods, where a gene is introduced via crossing into plant genotypes. It is a mistake to talk about gluten-free wheat as gluten comprises all proteins, lipids, fatty acids, starch and cell walls in the grain. Gluten contains 80% of the total 11-13% of proteins stored in a wheat grain. The rest is represented by the other chemical molecules, which are either unaltered or even increased in the prospective wheat celiac safe genotypes. Field planting of “Genetic modified organisms†(gmo), i.e., wheat lines, is permitted with appropriate space planting of the genetic transformants from other varieties upon permits obtained from the relevant US government organization.

I know so many that would agree, what my grand kids would give for a decent piece of bread for a sandwich.

That will require wheat resistance to every developing viral, fungal and insecticidal pathogens as well as climatic and soil adaptation. Knowing the genes involved - and these are being sequenced and characterized presently - the decent piece of bread can be preserved. The gene technology that can accomplish this is TALE (transcriptional activation like expression), which can induce site-specific mutations in the genome.

Dumbest thing I have ever heard. Quit screwing with the food chain folks!!!!

Sorry for your ignorance!

Breeding of wheat has been carried out for at least 10.000 years.

Celiac-safe wheat lines do not exist but will be accepted, when the source of celiac causing undigestible protein fragments from the ~50 gliadin and low molecular weight glutenin proteins have been eliminated from the endosperm of the bread and pasta wheat grains. Different celiac patients are sensitive to different gliadins or low molecular weight glutenins. These have thus to be silenced or eliminated. Baking properties are alone determined by the six high molecular glutenin proteins, which are retained in the grain. Our research has established that gene introduction(s) via transgenic methods, does not influence the expression of the rest of the genes in the genome of a plant, and cause less variation in comparison with conventional breeding methods, where a gene is introduced via crossing into plant genotypes. It is a mistake to talk about gluten-free wheat as gluten comprises all proteins, lipids, fatty acids, starch and cell walls in the grain. Gluten contains 80% of the total 11-13% of proteins stored in a wheat grain. The rest is represented by the other chemical molecules, which are either unaltered or even increased in the prospective wheat celiac safe genotypes. Field planting of “Genetic modified organisms†(gmo), i.e., wheat lines, is permitted with appropriate space planting of the genetic transformants from other varieties upon permits obtained from the relevant US government organization.

Most likely you have been testing GM-crops like maize and/or soybean. These transgenic crops are tolerant for herbicides or insect/pest resistance due to the introduction of a protein, which might lead to a reaction in exceptional cases.

Since some celiac patients are sensitive to High Molecular Weight Glutenin, we are producing wheat grains and rice grains that contain Heat-stable (1000C) enzymes that survive baking during bread formation and will upon consumption degrade the celiac inducing proteins of wheat in the stomach and intestine. An added advantage of expressing these natural therapeutic enzymes in wheat grains is to improve the bio-availability of gluten proteins leading to reduced nutritional deficiencies even in healthy individuals.

In another approach we introduce into the wheat genome a hairpin ribonucleic acid (RNA) which occurs naturally in cereals and is destined to be degraded. We target it to the transcripts of celiac inducing proteins.

There is a typographical mistake in our response, by 1000C we meant to say 100 degree celsius

Celiac-safe wheat lines do not exist but will be accepted, when the source of celiac causing indigestible protein fragments from the ~50 gliadin and low molecular weight glutenin proteins have been eliminated from the endosperm of the bread and pasta wheat grains. Different celiac patients are sensitive to different gliadins or low molecular weight glutenins. These have thus to be silenced or eliminated. Baking properties are alone determined by the six high molecular glutenin proteins, which are retained in the grain. Our research has established that gene introduction(s) via transgenic methods, does not influence the expression of the rest of the genes in the genome of a plant, and cause less variation in comparison with conventional breeding methods, where a gene is introduced via crossing into plant genotypes. It is a mistake to talk about gluten-free wheat as gluten comprises all proteins, lipids, fatty acids, starch and cell walls in the grain. Gluten contains 80% of the total 11-13% of proteins stored in a wheat grain. The rest is represented by the other chemical molecules, which are either unaltered or even increased in the prospective wheat celiac safe genotypes. Field planting of “Genetic modified organisms†(gmo), i.e., wheat lines, is permitted with appropriate space planting of the genetic transformants from other varieties upon permits obtained from the relevant US government organization.

You may want to do some more research on this topic. For many years researchers have known that a non-GMO celiac safe wheat does in fact exist:

https://www.celiac.com/articles/1066/1/Is-Triticum-Monococcum-Einkorn-a-Safe-Wheat-for-those-with-Celiac-Disease/Page1.html

https://www.celiac.com/articles/872/1/Baking-Quality-Wheat-Ancestors-May-be-Safe-for-Those-with-Celiac-Disease/Page1.html

What you are actually doing--which is supported by an ~900K corporate grant (if I recall correctly)--is to create a GMO version that you can patent in order to make money selling the seeds. This is not necessary, as what you seek already exists naturally, and I did explain this to your professor years ago.