Evaluating the range of proteomic and metabolic alterations in Rhizomania-resistant transgenic sugar beet plants

Despite the significant benefits of transgenic crops, there is a general concern that if these crops, like their non-transgenic counterparts, are safe for human and animal nutrition. One way to investigate the food safety of these crops is to compare the molecular properties of transgenic crops with their natural parents as well as crops resulted from conventional breeding which have a history of safe use. This research pursued to determine whether the set of changes that occurred in the two transgenic events of rhizomania-resistant sugar beet is comparable to the parental non-transgenic plants and was within the range of natural changes? Whether genetic engineering led to the generation of compounds that are not safe for humans and animals? Investigations have shown that proteomic alterations in both transgenic lines were minimal and within the range of natural variations. Metabolomic changes in a selected S6 event were very low while there were remarkable alterations in the metabolome of S3 event, although these were within the range of natural deviations too.