Background

The process of selecting superior performing plants for food, feed and fiber products dates back more than 10,000 years and has been substantially refined in the last century. While the perceived risks posed by genetically engineered crop plants has been extensively addressed, the extant levels of naturally occurring plant toxins in food crops has received far less attention.

Scope and approach

This review discusses how conventional breeding practices are used by plant breeders to develop safe new food crop varieties. Crops are grouped into two categories: 1) crop plants with no significant plant-produced toxins; and 2) crop plants with known plant-produced natural toxins. Examples and crop case studies from each category are used to illustrate the safety considerations of breeding these economically important crops and how plant breeding practices are adjusted prior to commercialization, depending on whether the crop produces known natural toxin(s).

Key findings and conclusions

Conventional breeding practices, such as cross- or self-pollinating, shuffle genetic allelic combinations to produce new progeny varieties without giving rise to novel uncharacterized biosynthetic pathways. Therefore, plant breeders can fine tune their practices depending on the crop and specific known natural toxins inherent to that crop species, thereby ensuring a safe food supply for consumers. Breeders often select different varieties of a single food crop for use in disparate markets, each with unique breeding selection practices depending on the desirable characteristics and safety considerations for the portion of the plant that is consumed and the nature of the particular processing industry.

中文翻译：

---

常规植物育种在确保粮食作物中自然产生的毒素的安全水平方面的作用

背景

选择性能优良的食品，饲料和纤维产品的工厂的过程可以追溯到10,000多年前，并在上个世纪得到了实质性的改进。尽管人们已经广泛地解决了基因工程农作物构成的可感知风险，但粮食作物中天然存在的植物毒素的水平受到的关注却很少。

范围和方法

这篇综述讨论了植物育种者如何使用常规育种实践来开发安全的新型粮食作物品种。作物分为两类：1）没有明显植物产生毒素的农作物；2）具有已知植物产生的天然毒素的农作物。来自每个类别的示例和作物案例研究用于说明育种这些具有经济意义的农作物的安全注意事项，以及在商业化之前如何根据植物是否产生已知的天然毒素来调整植物育种方法。

主要发现和结论

常规的育种方法，例如异花授粉或自花授粉，改组遗传等位基因组合，以产生新的后代品种，而不会产生新的未表征的生物合成途径。因此，植物育种者可以根据作物和该作物物种固有的特定已知天然毒素来微调其作法，从而确保为消费者提供安全的食品供应。育种者通常会选择一种粮食作物的不同品种用于不同的市场，每种品种都有独特的育种选择实践，这取决于所食用植物部分的理想特性和安全考虑以及特定加工业的性质。