Tokyo December 11th Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare passed its first domestic genetically edited food sales application on the 11th. This is a genetically edited tomato with more nutrients, gamma-aminobutyric acid, which is expected to be released for sale as early as 2022.
According to a report by the Japan Broadcasting Association TV station on the 11th, the expert group responsible for reviewing genetically modified and genetically edited food of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan passed the application for the sale of genetically edited tomatoes on the same day. This gene-editing tomato was jointly developed by Tsukuba University and enterprises in Japan. It contains four to five times more gamma-aminobutyric acid than natural varieties. It is expected to go on sale as early as 2022, when companies will label it as gene-edited food.
Gamma-aminobutyric acid is a natural non-protein amino acid. It is an important inhibitory nerve transfer substance in the central nervous system of mammals, and has the effect of stabilizing emotions.
Unlike genetically modified genes, gene editing only changes part of the original gene of the crop, and does not import foreign genes. Hiroshi Eme, a professor at Tsukuba University who led the research, said that gene editing can greatly shorten the time for crop variety improvement, and shorten the time for variety improvement that originally took 10 years to about one and a half years.
