Reduction in antinutritional factors

The interest in reducing antinutritional factors in plants has been predominantly focused around improving the nutritional value of feedstuffs. Phytates are present in many plant seeds and limit phosphorous uptake as well as other elements. The potential for introducing a phytase gene into feedstuffs has been explored [12]. However, there are other strategies that seem to be of greater overall value in human nutrition. Thioredoxin is thought to be an activator of the germination process in seeds [13]. It is able to activate proteins to degradation by proteolysis and results in improved digestibility [14]. It also has the potential advantage of being able to reduce allergenicity, presumably because of its capacity to break disulphide bonds by the action of the reduced thiol groups in the molecule and ensure the tertiary structure of the protein is accessible to degradation by proteases [14]. The insertion of the wheat thioredoxin geneinto barley has produced a transgenic plant where thioredoxin accounts for 7% of the total protein contentin the barley and is a good source of sulphur amino acids [15].