Faba beans have actually been a source of food protein since pre-historic times, but a fraction of the population, mostly from warm southern regions, cannot tolerate them. Pythagoras and his followers avoided them, and priests in ancient Rome associated them with death. Today, we know that faba beans produce the anti-nutrients vicine and convicine, which cause a risk for favism, a condition arising from damage to red blood cells, for susceptible individuals.

Among legumes – the pod-producing family of plants to which pea, chickpea and soybean also belong – faba beans have the second-highest yield globally. They also have the highest seed protein content of the starch-containing legumes and out-perform soybean in cool climates. Faba beans are consequently a prime protein source for facilitating a global switch to a plant-based diet, considered necessary for significant reductions in carbon emissions.

The VC1 gene is responsible for vicine-convicine content

However, when people deficient in a specific enzyme eat a large portion of uncooked faba beans, vicine and convicine can induce abnormal breakdown of red blood cells. The resultant hemolytic anemia, known as favism, has inevitably limited the potential use of faba beans. Although there are a number of faba bean varieties with low levels of vicine and convicine, the gene responsible for this trait was previously unknown.

Now, the scientists have identified the gene responsible for vicine-convicine content. What is more, they have identified the specific mutation within this gene that causes the reduction in synthesis. They found that all faba bean varieties with a low vicine-convicine content, descended from a single accession found in a genebank, had two nucleotides – the “letters” that make up DNA – inserted within the VC1 gene. This insertion disrupts the VC1 function and is the only known genetic source of low vicine and convicine content.

Stig U. Andersen, one of the project leaders, says, “Working across disciplines to integrate biochemical and molecular genetic data was key to finally unveiling the genetic source of low vicine and convicine.”

The work has been published in Nature Plants and it paves the way for the complete description of the biosynthetic pathway of vicine and convicine, and ultimately for breeding, production and commercial use of faba bean varieties totally free from these anti-nutritional compounds.

The team, comprising leading scientists from Denmark, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada, are already looking to the future. Fernando Geu-Flores, who led the work, says.

“Now that we understand where these anti-nutrients come from, we can attempt to breed them out completely, thus contributing to food safety and sustainability.”

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Hydrogen has held potential as an alternative fuel for vehicles for years. It is attractive because the process exhausts only water. The challenge has been to make hydrogen fuel cells that don’t rely on a large amount of platinum to serve as a catalyst in their fuel cells. About 50 grams has been needed per hydrogen-powered vehicle. Typically, vehicles only need about five grams of this rare and precious material. Indeed, only 100 tonnes of platinum are mined annually, in South Africa.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Chemistry have developed a catalyst that doesn’t require such a large quantity of platinum.

“We have developed a catalyst which, in the laboratory, only needs a fraction of the amount of platinum that current hydrogen fuel cells for cars do. We are approaching the same amount of platinum as needed for a conventional vehicle. At the same time, the new catalyst is much more stable than the catalysts deployed in today’s hydrogen powered vehicles,” said Professor Matthias Arenz from the Department of Chemistry.

Sustainable technologies are often challenged by the limited availability of the rare materials that make them possible, which in turn, limits scalability. Due to this current limitation, it is impossible to simply replace the world’s vehicles with hydrogen models overnight.

“The new catalyst can make it possible to roll out hydrogen vehicles on a vastly greater scale than could have ever been achieved in the past,” said Professor Jan Rossmeisl, center leader of the Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis at UCPH’s Department of Chemistry.

The new catalyst improves fuel cells significantly, by making it possible to produce more horsepower per gram of platinum. This in turn, makes the production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles more sustainable.

Because only the surface of a catalyst is active, as many platinum atoms as possible are needed to coat it. A catalyst must also be durable. Herein lies the conflict. To gain as much surface area as possible, today’s catalysts are based on platinum-nano-particles that are coated over carbon. Unfortunately, carbon makes catalysts unstable. The new catalyst is distinguished by being carbon-free. Instead of nano-particles, the researchers have developed a network of nanowires characterized by an abundance of surface area and high durability.

“With this breakthrough, the notion of hydrogen vehicles becoming commonplace has become more realistic. It allows them to become cheaper, more sustainable and more durable,” said Rossmeisl.

The research results have been published in Nature Materials.

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