Nutritional improvement of the aspartate family of amino acids in edible crop plants.

Plants are the primary source of protein for man and livestock, however, not all plants produce proteins which contain a balance of amino acids for the diet to ensure proper growth of livestock and humans. Alteration of the amino acid composition of plants may be accomplished using techniques of molecular biology and genetic engineering. Genes encoding key enzymes regulating the synthesis of lysine and threonine have been cloned from plants andE. coli and are available for modification and transformation into plants. Genes encoding seed storage proteins have been cloned and modified to encode more lysine residues for developing transgenic plants with higher seed lysine. Genes encoding seed storage proteins naturally higher in methionine have been cloned and expressed in transgenic plants, increasing methionine levels of the seed. These and other approaches hold great promise in their application to increasing the content of essential amino acids in plants.