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MAKING FOOD esearchers at the University of Arizona incinerated when levels approach 20 parts
SAFER Rhave found a promising way to prevent per billion (equivalent to one drop of water in
the loss of millions of tons of crops to a
a 22,000-gallon pool), but no routine testing
Daniel Stolte, fungus each year, offering the potential is available in many developing parts of the
University Communications to dramatically improve food security, world — especially Africa, where millions
Jacob Chinn photo especially in developing countries. The team’s of people depend on consuming what they
approach uses transgenic corn plants that harvest. There, toxin levels up to 100,000
produce small RNA molecules that prevent parts per billion have been measured, says
UA researchers have fungi from producing aflatoxin, a highly toxic study leader Monica Schmidt, an assistant
substance that can render an entire harvest professor in the UA’s School of Plant Sciences
pioneered a new unsafe for human consumption even in small and a member of the UA’s BIO5 Institute.
approach that could amounts. “Aflatoxin is one of the most potent toxins
Although field testing will have to precede on the planet,” Schmidt says. “Usually it won’t
save millions of tons widespread application of the new technique kill a person outright, but it can make you
of crops each year in agricultural settings around the world, the very sick.”
study, published in Science Advances, showed Funded by the Bill and Melinda
from contamination that transgenic corn plants infected with Gates Foundation, Schmidt and her team
with aflatoxin — a the fungus suppressed toxin levels below set out to study whether a naturally
detectable limits. occurring biological mechanism called
major threat to health Crops all over the world are susceptible RNA interference could be used as a
and food security, to infection by fungi of various Aspergillus weapon against the Aspergillus fungus.
species, which produce secondary That approach, called Host-Induced Gene
especially in the metabolites known as aflatoxins. These Silencing, or HIGS, builds on previous work
developing world. compounds have been implicated in stunting by other researchers who discovered that
children’s growth, increasing the risk for liver during the infectious process the host plant
cancer and making people more susceptible and the fungus exchange small nucleic acid
to diseases such as HIV and malaria. molecules.
In the U.S., crops intended for human
consumption are tested for aflatoxin and
10 ARIZONA ALUMNI MAGAZINE
