Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Types of Feeding Studies for
Nutritional and Safety Assessment
of Feeds from GM Plants
Gerhard Flachowsky*
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Friedrich-Loeffl er-Institute (FLI),
Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Braunschweig,
Germany
from transgenic plants should be used in
animal feeding studies.
Various types of animal feeding studies
are required to answer all the scientii c and
public questions, and to improve the public
acceptance of such food/feed and animals
(see ILSI, 2007; EFSA, 2008; Flachowsky
et
al
., 2012). h e current state of the nutritional
and safety assessment of feed from modii ed
plants and the future challenges will be
analysed in this chapter. h e necessity of
feeding studies with food-producing animals
depends also on the outcome of the com-
positional analysis (see Chapter 4).
h e main objective of the present chapter
is to consider the pros and cons of various
animal feeding studies for the nutritional
assessment of GM feed. Sometimes, it is
impossible, and also not necessary, to
separate strictly the nutritional and safety
assessment of feed/food.
h e principles of substantial equivalence
assessment have developed (OECD, 1993)
into a systematic approach that focuses on
comparing a particular GM plant to the
nearest isogenic relative using agronomic
metrics and compositional analysis (see
Chapter 4) to determine if genetic modii -
cation has produced unintended pleiotropic
ef ects. On the other hand, it must be asked,
in the case of i rst-generation plants, if such
rigorous analyses as mentioned in Chapters
Feeding studies in laboratory animals and
targeted livestock species may be useful for
assessing the nutritional and safety impact
of intended genetic changes. h is infor-
mation is more important for plants with
substantial changes in composition (plants
with output traits, or second-generation
genetically modii ed (GM) plants) than for
substantially equivalent plants (i rst-
generation plants). In approaching the
evaluation of nutritional value and safety of
feed from GM plants, two questions must be
answered.
h e i rst question is how the feed will be
used. Is it intended to be consumed as a
whole feed replacing a traditional feed, or is
it intended that the product of genetic
modii cation will be separated from the
plant and consumed as an ingredient or as a
co(by)-product? h e approach to nutritional
and safety assessment will be dif erent in
both cases. Feeding studies should be done
with those components used in animal
nutrition.
h e second key question deals with the
extent of consumption of the genetically
modii ed feed or ingredients. h e intake
level must be known or predictable in
advance of performing animal feeding
studies. h e highest possible amount of feed
