Caserta and De Souza JSM genetics 4 1021

International Journal of Agriculture System, 2020

Genetically modified (GM) plants can be created by adding specific DNA sequences obtained from the same plant species or different species. Which aims to achieve higher yields, disease and pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, production of antibodies, and other pharmaceutical molecules by manipulating gene expression to alter the protein properties. Insect resistant plants reduce the damage caused by pests and diseases. Herbicide glyphosate or glufosinate-tolerant GM plants gave promising results in combating weed. The properties of plants such as metal uptake, transport, accumulation, and detoxification of organic pollutants can be enhanced by genetically manipulating the fast-grown and introducing the responsible gene from the hyper accumulative species. GM plants can be used to produce cost-efficient and manageable drugs, vaccine, and biopharmaceuticals, if certain limitations are to be considered such as quality of final products, techniques for extraction and processing of biopharmaceuticals, and biosafety. Despite all these benefits, its adverse effects on the environment and human health have always been a matter of concern. The main limitation includes a horizontal transfer of the transgene to other species which may code for the specific antibiotic and herbicide resistance. It might be the possible transmission of resistance from the food products to the whole human population via intestinal bacteria. To address this several methods, need to be adopted to either keep away or eliminate marker genes from the transformed plants before growing in the field. Many scientists have come up with strategies to generate marker-free transgenic plants to give us safe and reliable GM technology.

Many genetic engineers have long resented the regulatory procedures imposed on transgenic crop plants, often arguing that there is no difference between the risks arising from transgenic plants and plants bred using ‘conventional’ methods. A recent proposal calls for complete deregulation of transgenic plants that have only plant DNA inserted into their genomes (Schouten et al., 2006a,b). The term cisgenic has been coined for such plants in order to highlight the origins of the transferred DNA. Other terms for plant-derived transgenes include ‘all-native DNA’ and ‘P-DNA’ (Rommens, 2004). In this short review and analysis article, we assess whether the published data on "cisgenic" plants suggest they pose fewer biosafety risks than other types of transgenic plants. We also describe experiments that would further scientific understanding of the differences between cisgenic, transgenic and "conventionally bred" plants.

Potato Research, 2008

Modern potato breeding requires over 100,000 seedlings per new variety. Main reasons are (1) the increasing number of traits that have to be combined in this tetraploid vegetatively propagated crop, and (2) an increasing number of traits (e.g., resistance to biotic stress) originates from wild species. Pre-breeding by introgression or induced translocation is an expensive way of transferring single traits (such as R-genes, coding for resistance to biotic stress) to the cultivated plant. The most important obstacle is simultaneous transfer of undesired neighbouring alien alleles as linkage drag. Stacking several genes from different wild sources is increasing this linkage drag problem tremendously. Biotechnology has enabled transformation of alien genes into the plant. Initially, transgenes were originating mainly from microorganisms, viruses or non-crossable plant species, or they were chimeric. Moreover, selection markers coding for antibiotic resistance or herbicide resistance were needed. Transgenes are a new gene source for plant breeding and, therefore, additional regulations like the EU Directive 2001/18/EC were developed. Because of a strong opposition against genetic modification of plants in Europe, the application of this Directive is strict, very expensive, hampering the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and the use of this technology by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Currently, GM crops are almost the exclusive domain of multinationals. Meanwhile, not only transgenes but also natural genes from the plant species itself or from crossable plant species, called cisgenes, are available and the alien selection genes can be avoided in the end product. This opens the way for cisgenic crops without alien genes. The existing EU directive for GM organisms is not designed for this new development. The cisgenes belong to the existing breeders' gene pool. The use of this classical gene pool has been regulated already in

Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering

This review charts the major developments in the genetic manipulation of plant cells that have taken place since the first gene transfer experiments using Ti plasmids in 1983. Tremendous progress has been made in both our scientific understanding and technological capabilities since the first genetically modified (GM) crops were developed with single gene resistances to herbicides, insects, viruses, and the silencing of undesirable genes. Despite opposition in some parts of the world, the area planted with first generation GM crops has grown from 1.7 Mhm 2 in 1996 to 179.7 Mhm 2 in 2015. The toolkit available for genetic modification has expanded greatly since 1996 and recently Nobel Laureates have called on Greenpeace to end their blanket opposition, and plant scientists have urged that consideration be given to the benefits of GM crops based on actual evidence. It is now possible to use GM to breed new crop cultivars resistant to a much wider range of pests and diseases, and to produce crops better able to adapt to climate change. The advent of new CRISPR-based technologies makes it possible to contemplate a much wider range of improvements based on transfer of new metabolic pathways and traits to improve nutritional quality, with a much greater degree of precision. Use of GM, sometimes in conjunction with other approaches, offers great opportunities for improving food quality, safety, and security in a changing world.

Annual Review of Plant Biology, 2008

Through the use of the new tools of genetic engineering, genes can be introduced into the same plant or animal species or into plants or animals that are not sexually compatible-the latter is a distinction with classical breeding. This technology has led to the commercial production of genetically engineered (GE) crops on approximately 250 million acres worldwide. These crops generally are herbicide and pest tolerant, but other GE crops in the pipeline focus on other traits. For some farmers and consumers, planting and eating foods from these crops are acceptable; for others they raise issues related to safety of the foods and the environment. In Part I of this review some general and food issues raised regarding GE crops and foods will be addressed. Responses to these issues, where possible, cite peerreviewed scientific literature. In Part II to appear in 2009, issues related to environmental and socioeconomic aspects of GE crops and foods will be covered.

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2007

The application of genetic engineering to plants has provided genetically modified plants (GMPs, or transgenic plants) that are cultivated worldwide on increasing areas. The most widespread GMPs are herbicide-resistant soybean and canola and insect-resistant corn and cotton. New GMPs that produce vaccines, pharmaceutical or industrial proteins, and fortified food are approaching the market. The techniques employed to introduce foreign genes into plants allow a quite good degree of predictability of the results, and their genome is minimally modified. However, some aspects of GMPs have raised concern: (a) control of the insertion site of the introduced DNA sequences into the plant genome and of its mutagenic effect; (b) presence of selectable marker genes conferring resistance to an antibiotic or an herbicide, linked to the useful gene; (c) insertion of undesired bacterial plasmid sequences; and (d) gene flow from transgenic plants to non-transgenic crops or wild plants. In response to public concerns, genetic engineering techniques are continuously being improved. Techniques to direct foreign gene integration into chosen genomic sites, to avoid the use of selectable genes or to remove them from the cultivated plants, to reduce the transfer of undesired bacterial sequences, and make use of alternative, safer selectable genes, are all fields of active research. In our laboratory, some of these new techniques are applied to alfalfa, an important forage plant. These emerging methods for plant genetic engineering are briefly reviewed in this work.

Transgenic Plants - Advances and Limitations, 2012

Scientia

Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics, 1974

Genetic engineering has quite rightly an image of science fiction. The time when new species with any wanted combination of genetic properties can be ordered from an animal or plant breeding factory seems far away. The layman's view that the science fiction of today is the reality of tomorrow is certainly an insufficient argument to justify optimism. If this were so, we should by now be able to produce hybrids between members of the animal and plant kingdom as was foreseen by a nineteenth-century equivalent of Fred Hoyle (see Fig. I). Despite the scepsis expressed by the prominent scientist Si.r Macfarlane Burnet in his book Genes, Dreams and Realities (1971), recent advances in molecular genetics have raised new enthusiasm (and uneasiness) which make people speak of genetic engineering as something to aim at as an approach to correct inborn errors of metabolism. This will, however, not be our principal dish if we restrict ourselves to a vegetarian menu. We view genetic engineer...

The regulation of genetically engineered crops, in Europe and within the legislation of the Cartagena biosafety protocol is built on false premises: The claim was (and unfortunately still is) that there is a basic difference between conventional and transgenic crops, this despite the fact that this has been rejected on scientifically solid grounds since many years. This contribution collects some major arguments for a fresh look at regulation of transgenic crops, they are in their molecular processes of creation not basically different from conventional crops, which are based in their breeding methods on natural, sometimes enhanced mutation. But the fascination and euphoria of the discoveries in molecular biology and the new perspectives in plant breeding in the sixties and seventies led to the wrong focus on transgenic plants alone. In a collective framing process the initial biosafety debates focused on the novelty of the process of transgenesis. When early debates on the risk assessment merged into legislative decisions, this wrong focus on transgenesis alone seemed uncontested. The process-focused view was also fostered by a conglomerate of concerned scientists and biotechnology companies, both with a vested interest to at least tolerate the rise of the safety threshold to secure research money and to discourage competitors of all kinds. Policy minded people and opponent activists without deeper insight in the molecular science agreed to those efforts without much resistance. It is interesting to realize, that the focus on processes was uncontested by a majority of regulators, this despite of serious early warnings from important authorities in science, mainly of US origin. It is time to change the regulation of genetically modified (GM) crops toward a more science based process -agnostic legislation. Although this article concentrates on the critique of the process-oriented regulation, including some details about the history behind, there should be no misunderstanding that there are other important factors responsible for the failure of this kind of process-oriented regulation, most importantly: the predominance of politics in the decision making processes combined with the lack of serious scientific debates on regulatory matters within the European Union and also in the Cartagena system, the obscure and much too complex decision making structures within the EU, and the active, professional, negative and intimidating role of fundamental opposition against GM crops on all levels dealing with flawed science, often declared as better parallel science published by 'independent' scientists.