Reduction of 14-16 kDa allergenic proteins in transgenic rice plants by antisense gene.

An antisense gene strategy was applied to suppress the 14-16 kDa allergen gene expression in maturing rice seeds. Gene constructs producing antisense RNAs of the 16 kDa allergen under the control of some rice seed-specific promoters were introduced into rice by electroporation. Immunoblot and RNA blot analyses of the seeds from the transgenic rice plants using the allergen-specific monoclonal antibody and a sequence-specific antisense RNA probe demonstrated that the 14-16 kDa allergen proteins and their transcripts of the seeds from several transgenic lines were present in much lower in amounts than those of the seeds from parental wild-type rice. The high levels of reduction observed were stably inherited in at least three generations.