A research team led by Prof. Alexander Vainstein from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a new variety of lettuce with significantly higher levels of essential vitamins and antioxidants.
Their findings, published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, demonstrate how CRISPR gene-editing technology can enhance the nutritional content of lettuce by increasing the amounts of β-carotene (provitamin A), zeaxanthin, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), making it a more nutrient-rich food option.
This achievement was made possible by combining modifications in different biochemical pathways, allowing the researchers to enhance multiple nutritional values simultaneously rather than targeting a single nutrient.
CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a powerful and precise tool for editing DNA. Unlike traditional genetic modification (GMO) methods, which introduce foreign DNA, CRISPR allows scientists to make targeted changes within a plant's own genetic code. This technology enables researchers to enhance crop traits such as nutritional content, disease resistance, and environmental adaptability more efficiently than ever before.
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