Question

Which of the following is true for Golden rice?
A. It is Vitamin A enriched, with a gene from daffodil.
B. It is pest resistant, with a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis
C. It is drought tolerant, developed using Agrobacterium vector
D. It has yellow grains, because of a gene introduced from a primitive variety of rice

Answer 1

Hint: The golden rice is a variety of rice that appears yellowish or golden in color instead of white due to which it is called so. Moreover, the golden rice was developed by two scientists named Ingo Potrykus and Peter Bayer.

Complete answer: Golden rice is a variety of rice that was developed to fulfill the deficiency of Vitamin A. Other than that, it could also combat the deficiency of Iron. This is because it was developed to accumulate more and more of the beta-carotene pigment. Golden rice is a genetically modified crop. It is a transgenic variety of rice of Oryza sativa. It contains very good quantities of beta-carotene pigment. This pigment is a provitamin A, meaning an inactive state of vitamin A. Due to this reason, beta-carotene is the main source of vitamin A. The grains of the golden rice are yellowish golden in color. The genes to synthesize the beta-carotene pigment are taken from the daffodil plant. Biologically daffodils are known as Narcissus pseudonarcissus. The gene from the daffodil plant is inserted into the plant of the rice using the vector Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Thus, based on the above information we can conclude that the statement that it is Vitamin A enriched, with a gene from a daffodil, is true for the Golden rice.
Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: Transgenic variety of crops refers to those crops in which desired genes from a plant are introduced to express the characteristics as required. Transgenic plants are developed as resistant to abiotic stresses, to reduce the reliability of crop plants on chemical pesticides, to increase the nutritional value of the plant, etc.