Agriculture & Food, Volume 2, 2014

Abstract: The safety of the transgenic feeds for the mammals is a long standing issue which casts a shadow over their acceptance by the farming community in large. The present study was designed to foresee the fate of the components of the transgene cassette (MON531 event) in mammalian digestive system. The objective includes adopting an in vivo approach to study the possible partial degradation of the consumed transgene in mice. The mice were fed upon a feed mix containing 50% transgenic flour from crushed Bt cotton seeds. Mice were slaughtered periodically to draw tissue samples of stomach, intestine, blood, liver, kidney, heart and brain. The purified DNA when subjected to PCR under primers for different nucleotide sequences of the transgene cassette revealed the presence of cry1Ac gene sequence and tnos in intestinal tissues only. However there was no evidence of absorption through the epithelial linining into blood nor other body organs. This study reveals the possible partial degradation of the transgenic nucleotides in the acidic fluid of mammalian stomach.