Tomato plants, stably transformed with a fused CaMV tomato inhibitor gene licensed to Kemin Industries, Inc., from Washington State University, will be screened for individual lines that produce very high quantities of anticarcinogenic protease Inhibitor I in the unripe fruit. High yielding transformants will be crossed into commercially grown strains. Fruits from transgenic plants possessing high levels of the inhibitor will be used to design an economically feasible procedure to provide low cost Inhibitor I for further study in its role as an anticarcinogenic substance. If long range studies demonstrate the value of the material in preventing cancer, pilot and, finally, full scale preparation procedures will be utilized to provide product to the market. Achievement of Phase I of this project should demonstrate a scheme in which the anticarcinogenic protease inhibitor I can be produced at costs 5-10 times lower than commercially available product. Phase II of the project will move the preparation of the Inhibitor into a demonstrable pilot phase and will also be used to create other transgenic tomato plants containing other inhibitors. It is anticipated that the production of at least some of these will be moved to pilot scale in Phase II.
