Working with teosinte, a wild cousin of maize, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist has found a molecular barrier that, bred into modern hybrid corn, is capable of completely locking out foreign genes, including those from genetically modified corn.

“This technology can potentially solve the problem of contamination of regular hybrid corn and organic hybrid corn by any genetically modified organism (GMO) during the growing season,” says Gerrish. “This technology could also allow a farmer to grow both types of maize crops and maintain a market segregated product.”

Using traditional breeding methods, the genetic barrier is being transferred to hybrid corn and testing quantities of seed should be available through seed companies in 2002, Gerrish says. Commercial quantities for planting by farmers are possible by the year 2003, he says.

How exciting! Does anyone know more about this? What is the status of the research? Has this trait been bred into any corn hybrids and used successfully to grow transgenic and non-transgenic maize side-by-side?

Dr. Jerry Kermicle. Image from his UW-Madison profile page.I looked for papers by Jerry Kermicle, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at UW-Madison, on Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar. I found a few articles, including one similar to the SD story in EMBO reports (pdf), but no peer-reviewed articles exploring the potential of the incompatibility trait. I also looked for Steve Gerrish, the extension agent listed in the SD article, without luck. I was able to find the patent application: Cross-incompatibility traits from teosinte and their use in corn.

So, what is this? Another case of an over-exuberant press-release? Is this just another version of male-sterility? Am I just tired and missing something?

Note: If you read the SD article, you will see two mentions of insecticidal toxins and monarch butterflies. Just in case you didn’t already know, there is no danger to monarch butterflies from the Bt toxin in pollen. USDA ARS has put together a nice fact sheet about this.

Missing Limb. American Bullfrog, Fairfield County, Ohio, July 16, 2001. Brandon Ballangee © 2009 greenmuseum.org

Amphibians, due to their moist porous skin, are particularly good at absorbing chemicals like pesticides from the environment, so the theory made sense even though there wasn’t any specific proof. Of course, environmentalists rallied around the deformed frogs as an excuse to demonize agriculture. In 1990, the chemical hypothesis was at least partially disproven. An ingenious yet simple experiment by Stan Sessions showed that the presence of small foreign bodies (whether resin beads or cysts caused by a parasite) could cause the growth of extra limbs. The most likely scenario is that over-fertilization of agricultural fields in the late 1980s led to fertilizer running into streams and wetlands. The extra nutrients contributed to larger than typical amounts of algae, on which grazed larger than typical numbers of snails. Those snails are the primary host of trematodes, some species of which carry out part of their life cycle in frogs, and those trematodes caused the deformities. In 2008, Jason Rohr (with Sessions and others) showed that four common pesticides play a role as well. Each seemed to have a negative effect on trematode larvae (which should benefit frogs) but also caused tadpoles to be more susceptible to infection, even though the pesticides (tested at maximum expected exposure levels) did not affect mortality directly.

So, the environmentalists were partially right – agriculture and pest control are partially to blame, although not in the way that was initially assumed. Happily, over-fertilization is less common today (at least in the US) – fertilizer application rates now more closely match what the plants actually need (partially because fertilizer costs have been increasing), and some pesticides are being replaced with genetically engineered crops (hopefully this will be improved upon in the future). Studies on the relationships between human activities and ecosystems strengthen the need for more research into alternatives in agriculture and pest control.

Still, the problem of the missing limbs was not resolved, and Sessions continued his research on amphibians. In the meantime, “ecological artist” Brandon Ballengee was observing amphibians in the wild for his art. Ballangee collaborates with scientists, working with them in field research to create art that engages the public in environmental issues. He became interested in the deformed limbs and wondered if they might be due to predators.

Ballangee and Sessions worked together to test this hypothesis by placing various predators in cups with tadpoles. Only dragonfly nymphs took the bait, biting off the hind legs of developing frogs (the developing front limbs are protected by the tadpoles’s gill chamber). The cause of frog deformities therefore, is natural, though man-made chemicals aren’t helping. I expect that the plight of the bees will be similar – natural causes, exacerbated by things like miticides in the hives.

Sessions, S., & Ruth, S. (1990). Explanation for naturally occurring supernumerary limbs in amphibians Journal of Experimental Zoology, 254 (1), 38-47 DOI: 10.1002/jez.1402540107

Rohr, J., Raffel, T., Sessions, S., & Hudson, P. (2008). Understanding the net effects of pesticides on amphibian trematode infections Ecological Applications, 18 (7), 1743-1753 DOI: 10.1890/07-1429.1

Upon first meeting someone, I can usually tell a quite a lot about them by the contents of their bathroom. The brand I see most often behind medicine cabinets of people I consider to be environmentally conscious is Tom’s of Maine. What Tom’s says to me about the person is that they are willing to spend a little bit of extra cash in order to take proactive steps to help green the Earth. Well, no more. My bathroom assessments will never be the same. Tom’s of Maine is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, a massive, tanklike company with an estimated 36,000 employees and revenue of approximately $11.4 billion. Its big products include: Ajax, Anbesol and Speedstick. I am only left to wonder, is Trader Joe’s, popularly known to showcase Tom’s of Maine in its hygiene department, just as much in the dark about all of this as I have been? Or is Joe’s simply another conduit for big corporate products?

A few questions to the author before I progress to my point: How many people’s bathroom cabinets do you see upon first meeting them? Wouldn’t the people be more environmentally conscious if they used simple baking soda for tooth brushing rather than expensive products that require packaging? Why pick on Anbesol – do you know of any locally produced oral pain remedies that work anywhere near as well? Are you really so naive as to not know that Trader Joe’s is actually a huge corporation in it’s own right? Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest… I’ll stick with the Tom’s example because it’s a good one. I just don’t understand what the problem is, and that might very well be why I often have difficulty communicating with people who are anti-capitalism. Local and small is nice, but I think it is very significant that a huge corporation like Colgate-Palmolive would find Tom’s to be lucrative enough to make an offer, purchase it, and mass market the products. The result is that many many more people have access to a relatively natural alternative that hasn’t been tested on animals. Granted, there is little transparency that a small company has been purchased by a larger one. It isn’t usually on the products, or if it is there, the print is small. Sadly, they have to do this because so many consumers that consider themselves organic or natural are very superficial in their determination of what is worthy. Tom’s website does have their parent company disclosed in their FAQs, along with an assurance that nothing has changed (aside from their ability to reach into more stores). It would be entirely different if Colgate purchased Tom’s, changed everything behind the scenes, but continued to sell it as if nothing had changed. Some companies simply slap on a “natural” sticker – I think we can all agree that is wrong – but that isn’t the case in these friendly take overs. The shining quality of capitalism is that producers follow the demands of customers. It’s a lot easier to work with the system than to fight it. People demand organic, natural, fair-trade… and they get it! I particularly think it is fabulous that Hershey’s owns Dagoba. With all of the money (power) that Hershey’s wields, they can push this sustainable fair-trade bone-char-free chocolate into places that it wouldn’t have been found before. Consumers that have access can then choose Dagoba over a normal Hershey’s bar. People can choose Burt’s Bees over more chemical laden bath and body products, Kashi over the dyed and sugared alternatives… the result is exactly what a conscious consumer wants! Well, if that conscious consumer is like me, caring more about the people who grow the chocolate, the watersheds that have less pesticides running into them, the animals that do not suffer in unnecessary tests… but thinks “evil capitalism” is a cliche that we should put to bed.

Anthocyanin-rich berries are delicious but expensive and only available during certain times of year. Most people do not seek out red cabbage or brightly colored heirloom varieties of veggies like carrots and cauliflower. In the US, the most frequently eaten vegetables are potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. Purple tomatoes exist, but heirloom tomatoes have issues like splitting and little time till spoilage. This is fine if you buy them at the farmer’s market and eat them the next day, but is not suitable for things like pasta sauce production (cans and bottles are where most people get their RDA of tomatoes, but it turns out they are healthier that way!). Varieties like Cherokee purple, while awesome, don’t produce anthocyanins throughout the fruit.

One option would be to develop tomatoes with high concentrations of anthocyanins. The trait could be bred into varieties that have more of the characteristics needed for processing into pastes and such (although I’m personally looking forward to purple cherry tomatoes, as in the photo). A collaboration of researchers in Europe has done it.

Could this GMO be accepted by people looking for healthier foods? It’s possible, but likely depends on marketing. Some people are simply afraid of anything new, from purple cauliflower (a heirloom variety) to Grapples (infused with grape juice in a dissapointingly boring way). Ah well. For the rest of us, though, purple tomatoes could be an interesting addition to our diets.

As Cathie Martin, the lead researcher, said: this is “certainly the first example of a GMO with a trait that really offers a potential benefit for all consumers.” The health benefits need to be verified in humans, but results look good so far. “In a pilot test, the lifespan of cancer-susceptible mice was significantly extended when their diet was supplemented with the purple tomatoes compared to supplementation with normal red tomatoes (SD).”

Will people be more willing to look into what GM really means when it has potential to benefit them directly? Will they even care how the tomatoes were made if benefits can be shown? This particular GMO transcends a lot of the issues associated with ones currently on the market.

Labeling isn’t as much of an issue when the trait is obvious, and these tomatoes will likely be proudly labeled due to their health benefits. Gene flow isn’t an issue because pollen spread in tomatoes doesn’t seem to be a problem, the trait can be eliminated from fields by sight, and will be of no advantage to wild relatives. The trait could be used with equal benefit in any farming strategy, organic or conventional, large or small, and will have no effect on natural ecosystems (except maybe preventing cancer in herbivores). The only issue left (please remind me if I’ve left any out!) is seed cost due to licensing. However, we must consider that all seed has a cost (simply Google purple tomato seeds to find prices – up to $4 for 20 seeds!), especially for hybrids.

I have to admit to surprise that this research was done in Europe – a collaboration of scientists from the UK, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. I’m happy that the research was able to bear fruit before anyone burnt down their lab.

Ok, back to the science.

First, the paper was really easy to read. I think a layperson wouldn’t have too hard of a time reading most it, given a glossary of genetics jargon. Of course, I could be totally wrong on that. Let me know what you think!

The results were achieved by expressing two interacting transcription factors from snapdragons (one of my favorite flowers) that in turn affect expression levels of genes in the anthocyanin pathway. I have to wonder why they ended up using snapdragon genes. You’d think there would be similar transcription factors in tomatoes.

The authors did thoroughly document an entire list of unsuccessful attempts at improving anthocyanins in tomatoes, both by themselves and other labs, including altering expression levels of transcription factors in related pathways and traditional breeding with wild tomatoes, so it seems unlikely that they would overlook a traditional breeding or cisgenic approach in favor of genetic engineering, if the other methods would accomplish their goals.

Although, they did use a cauliflower mosaic virus terminator (stop signal – has nothing to do with the so-called “terminator gene”).  They used a fruit specific promoter, so why not just use the terminator from that gene?

I am very glad that they chose a fruit specific promoter, though. There is no reason to tax the plant’s resources by producing anthocyanins in the leaves and other non-edible parts, unless there is some advantage to expressing them in these parts, such as pest deterrence.

I’m not convinced that they couldn’t do achieve this result with an entirely cisgenic gene construct, but I’m  a particularly big fan of cisgenics. All in all, this seems like a beautiful use of genetic engineering to achieve a result that is important to consumers that could theoretically be achieved by decades of breeding (although it hasn’t yet!). I hope people are able to look past the scary GMO label.

Eugenio Butelli, Lucilla Titta, Marco Giorgio, Hans-Peter Mock, Andrea Matros, Silke Peterek, Elio G W M Schijlen, Robert D Hall, Arnaud G Bovy, Jie Luo, Cathie Martin (2008). Enrichment of tomato fruit with health-promoting anthocyanins by expression of select transcription factors Nature Biotechnology DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1506

Dr. Diana Cox Foster of Penn State spoke at Iowa State about her work with CCD. She has been studying bees for 20 years and heads a diverse team of researchers working to solve the mystery. She said that there there are quite a few “theories” that her team disagrees with.

In particular, she said that CCD is not caused by the rapture or the Russians. She puts cell phones and genetically engineered crops in the same category, choosing instead to focus on legitimate leads. She says that there are many reasons why their group is not looking into these as possible causes, but one reason sticks out: some Amish and organic beekeepers whose hives are isolated from genetically engineered crops, many pesticides, and cell phones in the case of the Amish have experienced CCD, while some conventional beekeepers have not.

In other words, there isn’t a common thread connecting colonies that have collapsed.

Despite the fact that scientists like Dr. Cox Foster have spoken on the lack of legitimacy of these theories, people continue to write about them, such as this example from the always creative Global Research. I won’t pick the article apart due to time constraints, but wanted to show the range of views. A lot of mainstream articles have less extreme views, but few if any make an effort to debunk the incorrect theories. Instead, they reinforce them! Karl over at Inoculated Mind has a nice post summarizing some issues with the cell phone and GMO theories that’s over a year old. If only the reporters would research as he did.

There is abundant evidence that the Bt protein Cry1Ab doesn’t affect non-target insects. A meta-analysis from Jan 2008 of 25 independent studies found “that Bt Cry proteins used in genetically modified crops commercialized for control of lepidopteran and coleopteran pests do not negatively affect the survival of either honey bee larvae or adults in laboratory settings.” A meta-analysis from May 2008 of a public database found no significant effect on type or number of arthropods in Bt and non-Bt crops. They did find, as have many others, that various types of insecticides decreases the type and number of arthropods.

A quick lit search did come up with a June 2008 study that showed decreased learning ability in bees that were force fed syrup containing very high concentrations of Bt that are not found in the field. This data might indicate the need for more research on bee physiology, but doesn’t mean that Bt isn’t safe for bees in the field.

Now that we know what it’s not, I’ll share with you what Dr. Cox Foster thinks are the most likely causes and solutions…

An almond grove via Klausesbees (which incidentally may be the same one that Dr. Foster used in her presentation).

First is simple stress. When they are working on a specific crop, bees don’t have many dining options. Instead of having wildflowers or even another crop such as strawberries under the almond trees, the grove is a virtual pollen desert when the trees aren’t in bloom. Other crops used to be grown with hedgerows separating smaller farms, but these have been all but eliminated as farms are consolidated. This type of agriculture is what led to bees being trucked across the country to keep up with crop flowering.

Bees did not evolve in the conditions of being moved from state to state, feeding on one type of plant one day to something entirely different the next. A related problem could be the sugar and corn syrups that bees are fed before the crops bloom, just because bees haven’t evolved with this as a food source. The stress of the move and of the ever changing food sources might be too much to bear. The solution to this would be to have areas set aside for wildflowers that would both encourage natural bee hives and serve as a food source to local cultivated bee colonies when the local crops are out of season.

Second is a combination of mites, viruses, and other diseases. Dr. Cox Foster and her associates have sequenced DNA samples from bee hives and found a variety of surprising things, including Aspergillis fungus and the parasite Leishmania. Israeli virus (IAPV) correctly predicted collapsed hives more than any other factor. The virus is transmitted by Verroa mites (shown here in a photo from the USDA ARS). When bees are stressed, they are especially susceptible to mites which in turn makes them susceptible to disease. Royal jelly from China, used to feed prospective queen bees, was also found to contain IAPV.

Also contributing to susceptibility is the decrease in genetic diversity among bee hives. One possible solution to the problem is breeding or engineering resistant bees. For example, Arizona beekeepers who have Africanized bees haven’t experienced CCD. Another solution is to develop “biocides” which would be like a medicine to help the bees fight off mites and disease. Vaccines aren’t an option because bees don’t have an adaptive immune system. Beekeepers who irradiate box components before placing a hive inside have had some success, because irradiation kills mites and bacteria.

Third is pesticides, less likely, but still under consideration. Researchers found copious residues of miticides (which some beekeepers apply to bees or to boxes) and other pesticides in the bee wax that beekeepers buy and place in new hives. Use of formic acid, considered a natural substance because it is produced by some species of ants, is widespread and may play a role in increasing bee stress and susceptibility to disease. Bees are affected by a wide range of insecticides, which obviously could play a role. However, there is no common pesticide reside in colonies that experience CCD.

Another hive related possibility is a little more difficult to understand and quantify. Some commercial beekeepers try to get a lot out of their hives. One practice that Dr. Cox Foster questions is too-frequent hive “splitting” because it leads to bee stress. I was also able to find some ruminations on the net that the large cell size used by commercial beekeepers to encourage bee growth may also encourage mite infestations, but couldn’t find any actual data on the subject (anyone need a summer project?).

After her presentation, Dr. Cox Foster shared these links that include more information and info on how individuals can help: The Pollinator Partnership, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, and The Status of Pollinators in North America. Another source is the USDA Agricultural Research Service, who has multiple fact sheets, including Colony Collapse Disorder: A Complex Buzz.

One last thing I’d like to share before I end this post – bees are not the only pollinators out there. Of course some aspects of agriculture would have to change if we were no longer able to cart bees across the country, but it wouldn’t be the end of agriculture as some people have said. A Slate article from 2007 called Bee Not Afraid explains. Much of the information in the article matches things that Dr. Cox Foster said in the course of her lecture and in the Q&A session that followed.

The United States has the world’s most extensive history of using GE crops and one of the world’s best continentalscale programs in environmental monitoring. Combining these two sources of information
provides an opportunity to lead the world in identifying agricultural pathways for the future that best serve people and the environment. Providing scientists access to data on GE crop use at the county scale is a small and relatively inexpensive step with enormous scientific and public benefits.

** I don’t know if it’s legal for me to post a link to the pdf here. If you know the rules, please fill me in!

[A]rsenic levels in the grain of different varieties of rice in Bangladesh were as high as 1.8 parts per million, compared to levels of just 0.05 parts per million in Europe and the US. Contamination was even greater in leafy vegetables – in amaranthus and spinach, arsenic content can be double or triple the levels found in rice. For drinking water, WHO recommends a maximum arsenic level of 0.01 parts per million, which indicates that for some people, staple food crops such as rice may be an important source of exposure to arsenic.

Until now, the farmers essentially have three options: leave the fields fallow, plant rice and hope it doesn’t have too much arsenic, or attempt to plant a crop that doesn’t need as much water.
Om Parkash (photo and story from Newswise) of the University of Massachusetts Amherst primarily works on bioremediation, which aims to remove pollutants from the soil by binding it up in plants. His recent work branches into the opposite direction, using genetic engineering to produce rice plants that take up less As. The work is in the process of patenting, so technical details are scarce. For now, I’ll have to be content with the following:

“By increasing the activity of certain genes, we can create strains of rice that are highly resistant to arsenic and other toxic metals,” says Parkash, a professor of plant, soil and insect sciences. “Rice plants modified in this way accumulate several-fold less arsenic in their above-ground tissues, and produce six to seven times more biomass, making the rice safer to eat and more productive.” This could help alleviate the current world-wide rice shortage.

I’m really looking forward to learning more about the genetics, and hope that Dr. Parkash is able to move forward with this exciting crop improvement.
While As is actually a necessary mineral in small amounts and only becomes dangerous to health when consumed in high levels (as in Bangladesh), decreasing As in the food supply is definitely a worthy cause. Dr. Parkash says that As can accumulate in all parts of the rice plant, including grain and straw. High As levels in rice not only affect people, but can sicken animals who eat the straw and contaminate their meat (think bioaccumulation). See GreenFacts for a good summary of arsenic as it relates to human health and the environment (incidentally, they also have some of the most levelheaded information on GM crops that I’ve ever seen).
Other recently published work on arsenic levels in rice by Yamily Zavala and John Duxbury of Cornell was reported in the 2 May 2008 ISAAA Crop Biotech Update. For a summary of the articles, see the press release from the American Chemical Society. Disclosure: I wasn’t able to access these two articles themselves as ISU’s library site is down while I write this.
In Arsenic in Rice: I. Estimating Normal Levels of Total Arsenic in Rice Grain, they showed that mean As concentrations in samples of commercial rice in Europe and the US (0.198 mg/kg) were higher than in samples from Asia (0.07 mg/kg). The concentrations varied greatly by region, but not by farming method. Their data confirmed that irrigation with As contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh is correlated with higher As concentrations in grain. In the US, where groundwater is not contaminated with As, the authors suggest that historical contamination of soil is a likely cause. Note: mg/kg and ppm are equivalent units.
In Arsenic in Rice: II. Arsenic Speciation in USA Grain and Implications for Human Health, they showed that the As in some rice varieties accumulates in a less toxic form than inorganic As (inorganic = molecules do not contain carbon). Arsenic in rice grown in the US is bound into mostly into dimethyl arsinic acid (DMA), which . This data is in agreement with previous studies done by Andrew Meharg of the University of Aberdeen in the UK. There is evidence that DMA is safer than inorganic As, which means that US rice may be safer than European or Asian rice. The authors hypothesize that 30 years of breeding in the US for straighthead disorder resistant rice could have caused US varieties to acquire this As metabolic pathway.
Huge phenotypic variance is present in rice grains across varieties. It’s easy to imagine that metabolic pathways vary widely from variety to variety as well.

Good news from Africa – “Scientists and crop researchers at Kenya´s Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) developed the new wheat seeds over the past decade. Through a process called ‘mutation plant breeding’, they applied radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and traits.” In 2001, KARI plant breeders released Njoro-BW1, their first mutant wheat variety. It is drought tolerant, moderately resistant to rust (a fungus), has good yield, and good flour quality. “Kenya´s plant breeders soon will release a second mutant wheat variety, code-named DH4, which shares most of the same good qualities of Njoro-BW1.” [Golden Wheat “Greens” Kenya´s Drylands]

Traditional breeding encompasses all plant breeding methods that do not fall under current GMO regulations.As the European legal framework defines GMOs and specifies various breeding techniques that are excluded from the GMO regulations,we use this framework as a starting point, particularly the European Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment (European Parliament, 2001). Excluded from this GMO Directive are longstanding cross breeding, in vitro fertilization, polyploidy induction, mutagenesis and fusion of protoplasts from sexually compatible plants (European Parliament, 2001).It is indeed good news that Kenyan farmers have these lines of wheat with such improvements over unimproved varieties. However, radiation based so-called mutation plant breeding could have unintended changes in the genome. This technique, widely used in both organic and conventional crops, literally bombards the seeds with radiation. The seeds are allowed to germinate, and interesting mutants are used to create new lines. The problem is that multiple mutations can occur in the same seed, and some of those mutations may go undetected.

A February report entitled “Microarray analyses reveal that plant mutagenesis may induce more transcriptomic changes than transgene insertion” from the National Institute of Health in Portugal indicates that this plant breeding tool may not be the best idea. The last few sentences of their abstract sums it up:

We found that the improvement of a plant variety through the acquisition of a new desired trait, using either mutagenesis or transgenesis, may cause stress and thus lead to an altered expression of untargeted genes. In all of the cases studied, the observed alteration was more extensive in mutagenized than in transgenic plants. We propose that the safety assessment of improved plant varieties should be carried out on a case-by-case basis and not simply restricted to foods obtained through genetic engineering.

Transgenesis is the genetic modification of a recipient plant with one or more genes from any non-plant organism, or from a donor plant that is sexually incompatible with the recipient plant. This includes gene sequences of any origin in the anti-sense orientation, any artificial combination of a coding sequence and a regulatory sequence, such as a promoter from another gene, or a synthetic gene.Trying to regulate GM or non-GM as broad categories are impossible, because each resulting plant variety is going to have its own “quirks”. If DH4 and Njoro-BW1 have been extensively tested for unwanted alteration in gene expression and subsequently released for general use, then they are reasonably safe (remember, nothing is definitive in science). Similarly, if transgenic plants such as Sub1A-1 rice have been tested and released, then they too can be used without worry. However, if plant varieties mutated with radiation are not adequately tested before release, then we might all have something to worry about.

To my knowledge, only Canada requires testing of these crops. We can’t even assume that traditional breeding by cross pollination is 100% safe because of natural mutation and new combinations of genes and alleles. Tomatoes, potatoes, and celery all naturally produce some nasty toxins. We’ve mostly bred them out, but there have been cases where the toxins appeared at higher levels through traditional breeding. These plants have much higher probability of danger for consumers than transgenic plants, but don’t have to be tested at all under current regulations in the US or EU.

Intragenic or cisgenic plants are our best opportunity for safe enhancement of food crops (cis- means same). This is a form of genetic engineering that uses the plant’s own genome as a source for new traits instead of other non-related organisms (has also been called GM-lite). To learn more about the idea, please see www.cisgenesis.com.

Cisgenesis is the genetic modification of a recipient plant with a natural gene from a crossable—sexually compatible—plant. Such a gene includes its introns and is flanked by its native promoter and terminator in the normalsense orientation.Cisgenic plants can harbour one or more cisgenes, but they do not contain any transgenes.Some people, including myself, beleive that cisgenic crops should be regulated differently from transgenic crops that express proteins that don’t normally occur in that species. The applications of cisgenics are more limited than transgenics, but still there is a lot to be done. A great example of cisgenics is gene silencing, which can be used to inactivate unwanted genes, such as those that cause toxins. Examples that are currently being researched are less carcinogenic tobacco and rice that can more easily form hybrids. All of the benefits in KARI’s mutated wheat could have been accomplished with cisgenics.

JR Simplot is a company that is particularly interested in cisgenics, and has produced a lot of literature that essentially says that Monsanto’s way of creating new plant lines is not the right way. I think there’s room for both, but agree that cisgenics are inherently safer. I especially like the idea that cross pollination between cisgenic plants and wild varieties won’t be a problem, since these things could have all happened naturally anyway. The idea of cisgenics has been around for quite a few years now, but scientists need to talk with the public about it, so the public can talk to their government representatives, so the representatives can go about getting the regulations changed. 

Images from “Cisgenic plants are similar to traditionally bred plants: International regulations for genetically modified organisms should be altered to exempt cisgenesis”.