Preliminary development of a genetic strategy to prevent transgene escape by blocking effective pollen flow from transgenic plants

Davinder Pal Singh; Angelica M. Jermakow; Stephen M. Swain

doi:10.1071/FP06323

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Preliminary development of a genetic strategy to prevent transgene escape by blocking effective pollen flow from transgenic plants

Davinder Pal Singh ^A , Angelica M. Jermakow ^A and Stephen M. Swain ^A ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A CSIRO Plant Industry, PMB, Merbein, Vic. 3505, Australia.

^B Corresponding author. Email: steve.swain@csiro.au

Functional Plant Biology 34(12) 1055-1060 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP06323
Submitted: 7 December 2006 Accepted: 15 October 2007 Published: 27 November 2007

Abstract

Genetic modification (GM) of plants has great potential in the production of food and industrial compounds, and in molecular pharming. One of the greatest public concerns regarding this technology is effective pollen flow, in which wind- or insect-borne transgenic pollen is able to fertilise either non-GM crops of the same species, or closely related weed species, and lead to viable seed formation. In this paper we describe a novel concept, based on epigenetic inheritance (imprinting) and post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS)/RNA interference (RNAi), designed to prevent transgene escape via pollen flow from transgenic plants. A key advantage of this strategy is that it would allow all seeds from self-pollinated transgenic plants to be harvested and re-sown, without the need for specific treatments, while retaining all of the transgenes present in the parent. Thus, this strategy is not a Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT) and if implemented would not prevent seed saving by end-users.

Additional keywords: Arabidopsis, gene flow, imprinting, pollen, transgenic crops, RNAi.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr John P. Carr for providing the binary vector pGPTV-HPT, Ming Luo for the FIS2 : GUS plasmid, and Dr Ming Bo Wang for pMBW305. We also thank Carol Sigston for technical assistance.

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