Biochemist Goes To Washington With High-protein Corn

Because hisresearch holds promise for efficiently feeding high-protein corn topeople and livestock all over the world, Gallie has been invited tospeak to an audience of congressional staff in the Longworth HouseOffice Building of the U.S. House of Representatives. His 45-minutepresentation is scheduled for 10 a.m., Sept. 23.

The NationalCoalition for Food and Agricultural Research, a broad-based coalitionof agricultural producers, science societies and universities, issponsoring the seminar.

In the United States, the vast majorityof corn – nearly 65 percent – is used to feed animals for meatproduction. Much of the remainder is exported to other countries forfeeding animals or made into corn sweeteners or fuel alcohol. Corn, themost widely produced feed grain in the United States, accounts for morethan 90 percent of total value and production of feed grains in thecountry, with around 80 million acres of land planted with corn.

Gallie’sresearch on doubling the protein content of corn grain adds significantvalue to the crop, benefiting corn producers. Moreover, his technologynearly doubles corn oil, the most valuable content of corn grain, andsignificantly increases the grain’s value. Corn is processed also intoother food and industrial products such as starch, sweeteners, beverageand industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol.

“Nearly 800 millionpeople in the world suffer from protein-energy malnutrition, which is aleading cause of death in children in developing countries, many ofwhich already produce corn as a major cereal crop,” said Gallie. “Asignificant fraction of the world’s population, particularly indeveloping countries, has no access to meat as a protein source, andhas to rely on plant sources such as grain. The new corn we havedeveloped has two embryos in its kernel, which is what doubles thecontent of protein and oil and reduces the starch content. It couldprovide a good source of protein for those that depend on grain astheir primary source of nutrients.”

Every corn kernel resultsfrom a flower on an ear of corn, Gallie explained. Initially the earproduces a pair of flowers for every kernel. But then one of the sisterflowers undergoes abortion, resulting in one flower for each kernel.Gallie’s research group has developed technology that essentiallyrescues the aborted flower, resulting in two kernels that are fusedtogether. “Despite the fusion, the kernels are not bigger,” Galliesaid. “It’s basically the same corn, except that it is protein-rich andstarch-poor – something that, if applied to sweet corn, would appeal toa large number of weight-conscious people in this country who areinterested in low-carb diets and who normally avoid corn in theirdiets.”

Gallie and his colleagues published their work last yearin The Plant Journal. Though their research focused on feed corn, thetechnology can easily be applied to sweet corn, a sugar-rich mutantstrain of regular corn.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, theNational Science Foundation, and the California Agricultural ExperimentStation funded the research.