Golden rice Golden rice Golden rice is a variety of rice ("Oryza sativa") produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of rice. It is intended to produce a fortified food to be grown and consumed in areas with a shortage of dietary vitamin A, a deficiency which each year is estimated to kill 670,000 children under the age of 5 and cause an additional 500,000 cases of irreversible childhood blindness. Rice is a staple food crop for over half of the world's population, making up 30–72% of the energy intake for people in
12-oxophytodienoate reductase 12-oxophytodienoate reductase 12-oxophytodienoate reductase (OPRs) is an enzyme of the family of Old Yellow Enzymes (OYE). OPRs are grouped into two groups: OPRI and OPRII – the second group is the focus of this article, as the function of the first group is unknown, but is the subject of current research. The OPR enzyme utilizes the cofactor flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and catalyzes the following reaction in the jasmonic acid synthesis pathway: This reaction occurs in peroxisomes in plants. Several isozymes have been discovered, with varying substrate stereospecificity: three in "Lycopersicon esculentum", 13 in "Oryza sativa", and five in "Arabidopsis thaliana".