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"The exciting finding is that we have been able to reduce gossypol -- which is a very toxic compound -- from cottonseed to a level that is considered safe for consumption," said Dr. Keerti Rathore, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station plant biotechnologist. "In terms of human nutrition, it has a lot of potential." The cottonseed from these plants meet World Health Organization and U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards for food consumption, he said, potentially making the seed a new, high-protein food available to 500 million people a year.

The work, announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was done by Rathore and a team of scientists from the Experiment Station, Texas A&M University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Southern Plains Research Center in College Station.

    The team used RNAi, or technology that can "silence" a gene. This enabled them to target the gossypol gene only in the cottonseed but let the gene express itself in the rest of the plant. "What we have done is use this technology to selectively inhibit a gene that codes for an enzyme that is involved in the gossypol biosynthetic pathway in the seed, " Rathore said.

Cotton fibers have been spun into fabric for more than 7,000 years. For most of that time,

For every pound of cotton fiber, the plant produces 1.6 pounds of seed. The world produces 44 million metric tons of cottonseed each year. Cottonseed typically contains about 22 percent protein, and it's a very high-quality protein."

In all, about 10 million metric tons of protein are contained in that amount of seed.

Processes have been developed to extract gossypol, making the oil available for human consumption but at great expense, he said. Plus, the meal that is left after the oil is removed still contains the gossypol and thus is not edible for humans, or for pigs, chickens or turkeys.

Plants with the new trait developed by the team could make the plant more valuable both as a fiber and a food crop.

At least another decade in the development of cotton varieties for widespread commercial production.