www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Scientists from both China and the United States have devised a technique
that could prevent the flow of transgenic genes into non-biotech crops ? and
might end the long-standing debate on terminator genes, February 2007 by
Wagdy Sawahel.

The development could free poor farmers from dependence on companies that
sell genetically modified (GM) seeds, suggest the researchers.

The GM-gene-deletor system successfully removed transgenic genes from the
seeds and pollen of GM tobacco.

If this technique is applied successsfully to other crops, it could allow
farmers to grow non-transgenic and fully viable plants using seeds or pollen
from GM plants ? unlike the terminator gene system, which makes the plants
infertile.

Terminator genes are inserted into GM seeds as a way to protect the
companies' patents and ensure that no genes from GM crops contaminate non-GM
crops.

But for farmers in developing countries, this means they have to buy the
seeds every year (see: 'Terminator' GM technology stays banned ? for now).

The scientists designed specific recognition sites to add around the foreign
genes, targetting them for excision. By incorporating these into the genome
of GM tobacco plants, the scientists found that all unwanted genes were
removed from the pollen and seed with as much as 100 per cent efficiency
under glasshouse conditions.

Keming Luo and colleagues, from the Chinese Biotechnology Center of
Southwest University and the US-based Universities of Connecticut and
Tennessee, published their results in the Plant Biotechnology Journal on 26
January.

According to Mohammed Gebriel, an Egyptian biotechnologist at the
Belgium-based Ghent University, the GM-gene-deletor system could free poor
farmers from this dependency on multinational companies. He said it could
also protect farmers' tradition of sharing seeds to improve crop varieties,
as buying sterile seeds made this impossible.

The gene-deleting technique also provides an important step towards tackling
the environmental and health issues raised against GM crops, including
consumer concerns over GM food, Gebriel told [www.scidev.net]