CRISPR-Adventskalender

Soybean oil is used in foodstuff and for industrial applications. It contains high amounts of healthy, polyunsaturated fatty acids. However, when roasting or deep-frying with soybean oil (and other oils high in polyunsaturated fatty acids), potentially harmful and taste-altering degradation products may be formed. To counteract this and to ensure a better stability of the oil during frying, fat was often artificially hardened, which results in trans-fatty acids. Trans-fatty acids play a role in the development of cardiovascular diseases and their content in food should be kept as low as possible. As an alternative to hardening, scientists from Calyxt, a young US biotech company, have used the TALEN technology* to specifically trigger two mutations in the soybean genome. The processed soybeans contain less unsaturated fatty acids, but significantly more of the heat- and oxidation-stable oleic acid. As a result, fewer harmful by-products are formed during roasting or deep-frying, while industrial hardening is unnecessary. The variety developed in this way is already commercially cultivated and marketed in the USA and is not classified as genetically modified in the USA.