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Abstract
The coat protein (CP) gene of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) was cloned from a Chinese
CMV isolate, the CaMV promoter and NOS terminator added and the gene construct was
transformed into both sweet pepper and tomato plants to confer resistance to CMV.
Safety assessments of these genetically modified (GM) plants were conducted. It was
found that these two GM products showed no genotoxicity either in vitro or in vivo
by the micronucleus test, sperm aberration test and Ames test. Animal feeding studies
showed no significant differences in growth, body weight gain, food consumption, hematology,
blood biochemical indices, organ weights and histopathology between rats or mice of
either sex fed with either GM sweet pepper or tomato diets compared with those with
non-GM diets. These results demonstrate that the CMV-resistant sweet pepper and tomato
are comparable to the non-GM counterparts in terms of food safety.