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.