Abstract：Transgenic herbicide-resistant soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most widely planted genetically modified crops in the world. Meanwhile, the impacts of its rapid extension brought to environmental have become a focus of public interests. In this study, the Korean quails (Coturnix japonica) were selected as test animals, which were closely related to the environment, were randomly divided into 5 treatment groups. To assess the safety of transgenic herbicide-resistant soybean to birds, a 90 d feeding trial with transgenic soybean (ZZ-J9331) and its non-transgenic counterpart (ZH-30) were supplied to quails in basal feed with a ratio of 28% and 70% respectively. After 90 d feeding, the influence of genetically modified (GM) soybean were evaluated by monitoring quails health and physiological indexes, recording animal's body weight and food intake, dissecting animals and calculating viscera coefficient afterwards. It was observed after 90 d, animals of each group were in good condition. Quails in each group ate normal, moved freely, and had shiny hair, nose, eyes and mouth without abnormal secretions. The body weight of all experimental groups showed an increasing trend, and no abnormal changes in food intake. Different from the previous literature, in addition to the above related to the growth and development index, this study collected blood samples from quail at the end of the experiment, blood and blood biochemical detection, in addition, this study also had some important organs pathological dyeing processing, in order to observe the possible toxicity of glyphosate tolerance of transgenic soybean on quails from the toxicological perspective. Compared with the non-GM soybean control group, several indexes of the serum biochemistry, hematology, relative organ weight of quails had statistically significant difference (P＜0.05) and no dose-relative or gender-relative, indicating no obvious biological significance. Moreover, no pathological change was observed in heart, brain, kidney, lung, stomach, intestine, spleen, adrenal gland, uterus, ovary, testis or epididymis, while fatty degeneration of hepatic cells and diffuse hyperplasia of fiber connective tissue were noticed in liver slices between experimental and control based diets group, which was taken as spontaneous lesions of liver, excluding the influence of absorbing transgenic soybean. Consequently, the transgenic herbicide-resistant soybean J9331 is as same safety as its non-GM maize in 90 d feeding study, which provides scientific evidence for the safe usage of GM soybean. In the aspects of the chronic toxicity of glyphosate herbicide resistant soybeans genetically (ZZ-J9331), this study fills the blank in the effects of transgenic soybean on bird potential environmental toxicology, provides data support for the commercial application, provide a scientific basis for environmental safety assessment and management of transgenic organisms in China.
