* 07 January 2008

    * From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

Would you drink wine made from genetically engineered grapes if it had extra benefits? Such wine could be on the menu, thanks to a grape variety six times richer than normal in resveratrol, the compound in red wine associated with increased longevity, decreased heart disease and a host of other benefits.

Yuejin Wang and colleagues at the Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University in Yangling, Shaanxi province, China, made the supervine by equipping it with an extra gene from a wild Chinese vine. Vitus pseudoreticulata has an unusual variant of the stilbene synthase gene, which triggers resveratrol production (Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture, DOI: 10.1007/s11240-007-9324-2).

The team plans to make wine from the GM vine, though their main goal is to make grapevines more resistant to fungus, which is kept in check by resveratrol.

GM Organisms - Is GM the future? Learn more in our continually updated special report.

From issue 2637 of New Scientist magazine, 07 January 2008, page 12