December 2006
Transformation-induced
mutations in transgenic plants: Analysis and biosafety
implications
ALLISON K. WILSON1*, JONATHAN R. LATHAM1 AND RICARDA A.
STEINBRECHER2
1Bioscience Resource Project, P0 Box 66, Ledbury, HR8 9AE, UK
and 2EcoNexus, P.O. Box 3279, Brighton, BN1 1TL, UK.
Source:
BioscienceResource.org via
Checkbiotech
Introduction
Plant transformation has become an
essential tool for plant molecular biologists and, almost
simultaneously, transgenic plants have become a major focus of
many plant breeding programs. The first transgenic cultivar
arrived on the market approximately 15 years ago, and some
countries have since commercially approved or deregulated (e.g.
the United States) various commodity crops with the result that
certain transgenic crop plants, such as herbicide resistant
canola and soya and pest resistant maize, are currently grown on
millions of acres.
Advocates for the use of genetic engineering as a plant breeding
tool claim its precision provides a major advantage over other
plant breeding techniques. The presumption is that genetic
engineering results in (1) only specific and known genotypic
changes to the engineered plant (the simple insertion of a
defined DNA sequence - the transgene) and (2) only known and
specific phenotypic changes [the intended trait(s) encoded by
the transgene]. This presumption has strongly influenced
biosafety regulation. Regulators typically assume that the plant
transformation methods used to introduce a transgene into the
plant genome are mostly irrelevant to the risk assessment
process and that the major source of risk in transgenic crop
plants arises from the transgene itself. The focus of this
review is a scientific assessment of the precision of current
crop plant transformation techniques.
Full document:
http://www.bioscienceresource.org/docs/BSR-2-BGERvol23.pdf
Biotechnology and Genetic
Engineering Reviews – Vol. 23, December 2006
0264-8725/07/23/209-237 $20.00 + $0.00
© Lavoisier/Intercept, 14 rue de Provigny, F-94236 Cachan cedex,
France |