Discrimination of Transgenic Rice containing the Cry1Ab Protein using Terahertz Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Spectroscopic techniques combined with chemometrics methods have proven to be effective tools for the discrimination of objects with similar properties. In this work, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) combined with discriminate analysis (DA) and principal component analysis (PCA) with derivative pretreatments was performed to differentiate transgenic rice (Hua Hui 1, containing the Cry1Ab protein) from its parent (Ming Hui 63). Both rice samples and the Cry1Ab protein were ground and pressed into pellets for terahertz (THz) measurements. The resulting time-domain spectra were transformed into frequency-domain spectra, and then, the transmittances of the rice and Cry1Ab protein were calculated. By applying the first derivative of the THz spectra in conjunction with the DA model, the discrimination of transgenic from non-transgenic rice was possible with accuracies up to 89.4% and 85.0% for the calibration set and validation set, respectively. The results indicated that THz spectroscopic techniques and chemometrics methods could be new feasible ways to differentiate transgenic rice.