ILSI Crop Composition Database (www.cropcomposition.org)
In April 2006, ILSI released Version 3.0 of its crop composition database, which provides up-to-date information on the natural variability in composition of conventional crops and provides a reference for comparing the composition of new crop varieties, including those developed through biotechnology.
Crop, food, and feed composition studies are considered an essential part of the safety assessment of new crop varieties, including those developed through biotechnology. Information obtained from such studies is used to assess similarities and differences in important nutrients and anti-nutrients. This database was generated from crop composition data obtained from studies conducted by members of the agricultural biotechnology industry over a number of years at multiple worldwide locations. Information collected in the database includes data on numerous biochemical parameters, such as proximates, amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, key vitamins, and anti-nutrients.
Version 3.0 of the database is an extension of previous versions. It contains approximately 118,000 data points that may be searched and accessed based upon user-selected queries. The analyses of the samples were conducted using validated analytical methods, many of them being AOAC Official Methods of Analysis. The database complements existing food and nutrient databases, such as the USDA Nutrient Database and FAO’s INFOODS database, and should be of interest to research and regulatory scientists in many areas such as plant biology, food science, and animal nutrition.
The development and application of the database has been described in a June 2004 article in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis (volume 17, issue 3-4, doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2004.03.006). The database was referenced by the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) in its Guidance Document of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms for the Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Plants and Derived Food and Feed (the EFSA Journal [2004] 99, 1-93).
Plans continue to enhance the database. The next version(s) will allow the user to limit the search to a particular version of the database, determine when a search result contains numerical data below the limit of quantitation, when a query contains an illogical crop/tissue combination (the user will be prompted with correct choices), and both fatty acid and amino acid values will be available as both percent of total and percent of dry weight.
ILSI welcomes and highly encourages submission of other publicly available composition data that meet the acceptability criteria outlined on the website.
The database is available for public use (free of charge) via the Internet at www.cropcomposition.org.
Case Study: Compositional Analysis of Biotech Maize
Globally in 2006, the land area planted with crops derived using biotechnology was 250 million acres, up 13% since 2005. This represents the 11th consecutive year of continued expansion, resulting in a more than fifty-fold increase since 1996, the first decade of commercialization of biotech products. The increasing contribution of biotechnology derived crops to the global food and feed supply led to an initiative within ILSI to understand the compositional variability in maize derived from biotechnology. Maize was selected because it is the crop that represents the broadest diversity of incorporated and approved trait types.
The resulting publication was recently submitted to the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis by the Task Force. This paper describes the results of a case study in which composition data of biotech maize from six different production years and 19 different geographic locations in three world areas were assembled and analyzed using an off-line database similar in structure and functionality to the existing Version 3.0. Almost 38,000 data points were placed in eight analyte categories including proximates, fiber, minerals, vitamins, other metabolites, amino acids, fatty acids and bioactives (phytic acid and raffinose) in grain, and proximates and fiber for forage. The mean values of biotechnology derived grain and forage were very similar to their median values. The analyte ranges for the biotechnology derived maize were shown to agree closely with those for conventional maize compiled in both the OECD consensus document and Version 3.0 of the ILSI Crop Composition Database for this crop.
For more information on this or other IFBiC projects, please contact Marci Levine mlevine@ilsi.org.