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Can a gene from an orange cauliflower found three decades ago be the key to
making food crops more nutritious? January 2007 by Luis Pons.

Quite possibly, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist
Li Li. She's using cauliflower to identify genes and define molecular
mechanisms that regulate nutrients in plant-based foods.

Li, a molecular biologist at the ARS U.S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition
Laboratory (PSNL) in Ithaca, N.Y., is making significant headway using this
gene - dubbed "Or" for the color orange - to induce high levels of
beta-carotene in food crops. She and colleagues at Cornell University
isolated the gene last year.

The research may make a huge impact on vitamin A deficiency, which has been
reported to affect some 250 million children worldwide, according to Li.
That's because beta-carotene, which gives orange carrots their color, is a
carotenoid - fruit-and-vegetable compounds that the body converts into
essential vitamins and uses as antioxidants beneficial to health. Humans
convert it into vitamin A.

Li added that, in cauliflower, Or - which she described as a semi-dominant
gene mutation - promotes high beta-carotene accumulation in various plant
tissues that normally don't have carotenoids.

These studies can help researchers understand how carotenoid synthesis and
accumulation are regulated in plants. This, in turn, can lead to strategies
for increasing carotenoid content in food crops for improving human
nutrition and health, she said.

The Or gene originates from an orange cauliflower plant found in a Canadian
field nearly 30 years ago. ARS and Cornell scientists in Ithaca have been
studying its genetics for about eight years.

Li's current work, which is partially detailed in the December issue of the
publication Plant Cell, is part of a concentrated strategy at PSNL to apply
genomics and related disciplines toward improving the nutritional quality
and disease resistance of important food crops.

[www.ars.usda.gov]