Scientists find wheat ‘with 85 per cent less gluten’

  • Researchers created a new strain of wheat that almost eliminate a form of gluten
  • The wheat was created with a controversial ‘Crispr-Cas9’ gene editing technique
  • The gene editing technique lets researchers ‘cut and paste’ small DNA sections
  • Scientists used tool to remove some of the genes that code for gliadin proteins

The trend for gluten free food has led scientists to use gene editing techniques to greatly reduce gluten in wheat.

Sufferers of Coeliac disease cannot eat gluten as the wheat protein can cause major damage to their digestive systems.

Coeliacs have to avoid eating bread, cake and pasta and other foodstuffs made with wheat.

Researchers in Spain have created a new strain of wheat that comes close to eliminating the form of gluten that triggers an immune reaction in people with Coeliac disease

Instead they have to eat foods made with alternative flours, such as those made of rice.

They could be helped by researchers who have created a new strain of wheat that comes close to eliminating the form of gluten that triggers an immune reaction in people with the condition.

Coeliacs are not the only people avoiding gluten – adherents to the ‘clean eating’ movement who also believe gluten is bad for them also shun wheat.

The wheat was created using the controversial ‘Crispr-Cas9’ gene editing technique.

Coeliac disease is a disorder that affects around one in 100 people, and causes a severe autoimmune reaction to certain strains of gluten, known as gliadins.

Sufferers of Coeliac disease cannot eat gluten as the wheat protein can cause major damage to their digestive systems. Coeliacs have to avoid eating bread, cake and pasta and other foodstuffs made with wheat

Sufferers of Coeliac disease cannot eat gluten as the wheat protein can cause major damage to their digestive systems. Coeliacs have to avoid eating bread, cake and pasta and other foodstuffs made with wheat

Eating these strains can lead to serious side effects including vomiting, brain damage and even gut cancer.

But researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in Cordoba, Spain, have created a new type of wheat that only has 15 per cent of the gliadins in normal wheat.

The researchers used the Crispr-Cas9 gene editing technique – a genetic tool that can ‘cut and paste’ small sections of DNA – to remove some of the genes that code for the gliadin proteins.

Out of a total of 45 genes that code for gliadins, the researchers managed to knock out 35.

In their study, published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, the researchers, led by Dr Francisco Barro, wrote: ‘Up to 35 different genes were mutated in one of the lines of the 45 different genes identified in the wild type, while immunoreactivity was reduced by 85 per cent.’ 

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