Previous Online Discussions of the AHTEG

Dear all,

As agreed at the third meeting of the AHTEG and reflected in the Action Plan, an online discussion on the “Use of Terms” section of the Guidance on Risk Assessment of LMOs will take place from 18 to 25 June.

The discussion is now open at http://bch.cbd.int/onlineconferences/portal_ahteg_ra.shtml . Please note that you must sign in to the BCH to reach this page and that access is restricted to AHTEG members.

When providing your input, you are kindly invited to download the report of the third meeting of the AHTEG (which contains the Guidance in its annex I), make your suggestions to the “Use of Terms” section in pages 41-43 as track changes, and upload the file in the online discussion. 

The report of the third meeting of the AHTEG is attached to this message and available through the link above.

Please note that this discussion will end on 25 June at 1:00 a.m. GMT.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any question.

Thank you and best regards,
Manoela

Dear colleagues,

I trust that you all have returned safely from Mexico City to your home countries. Thank you to those who have provided photographs which no doubt will ensure a nice memory of our meeting in Mexico City at the beginning of this month.

Thank you to those who have started the discussion after a little time lag.
However, I would like to remind you that according to our agreed Action Plan the purpose of this one-week online discussion among AHTEG members is to focus exclusively on the Annex of the Draft Guidance, the section "Use of terms". We did not have the time to discuss this important part of the Guidance in Mexico City, so now is the pssibility for you to provide your comments, if any, on the suggested text for the use of terms. The discussion forum is open only for a few more days, in fact it will close coming Saturday, 25 June, see the opening message by the SCBD.
In this context I would kindly invite you to use this possibility and provide your comments as soon as possible, so that if necessary, also a short discussion among us can take place on any posted comments.
According to the action plan I will then, in consultation with the Bureau and the SCBD, look at your comments and try to take them into account in a revised version of the Annex in the context of a revised draft of the Guidance, which will then be posted online on 4 July. On this basis, again according to the Action plan an online discussion of the whole open-ended online Group and the AHTEG will take place in the second half of July (18 to 29 July). This discussion will focus on any further need for revision of the text of the Draft Guidance. So in my point of view it is crucial that we have a well developed version of the Use of terms section as well for this purpose.

I am looking forward to reading your comments soon. Thank you and best wishes to all of you

Helmut
AHTEG-Chair

Dear colleagues

My comments are on text “Use of Terms”, lines 1324-1148 of bsrarm-03-04-en.doc

Gene flow – For the use of this term in the context of this Guidance, see “Vertical gene transfer”. [back to the text]

Suggested change: Gene flow – For the use of this term in the context of this Guidance, see “Vertical gene transfer”; “Horizontal gene transfer”.

Rationale for change: both vertical and horizontal/lateral gene transfer are gene flow pathways.

Horizontal gene transfer – Movement of genetic information from one organism to another through means other than sexual transmission. Also referred to as “horizontal gene flow” or “lateral gene transfer”. [back to the text]

Suggested change: Horizontal gene transfer – the transfer of genetic material from one organism to another organism outside the context of parent to offspring (i.e. vertical) reproduction. Also referred to as “horizontal gene flow” or “lateral gene transfer”.

Rationale for change: Many organisms reproduce exclusively asexually; the transmission of genes outside of sexual reproduction, e.g. cell division, is the most common form of gene transmission and is clearly not horizontal. So as written the definition is not biologically accurate. The proposed definition is used by the New Zealand regulator. This definition allows all pertinent risk pathways to be considered. Moreover, it has been accepted in internationally peer-reviewed articles where the topic was specifically evaluating the appropriateness of the definition.

Introgression – Introduction of genetic elements from an organism into the genetic pool of organism of another species, sub-species or population occurring when mating between the two produce fertile hybrids. [back to the text]

Suggested change: Introgression – Introduction of genetic elements from an organism into the genetic pool of organisms of another species, sub-species or population eventually resulting in some fertile offspring.

Rationale: the fertility of offspring isn’t the critical issue, because of course not all reproduction even by plants is through sexual recombination (or crossing). For example, some species of grasses switch to a form of asexual seed production (called apomixis) that allows them to reproduce even if the hybrids are sexually sterile. The issue is the relative stability of the introduced gene in new populations regardless of the way they resist dilution. Furthermore, the existing definition does not give suitable advice about how long into the future one must look for the reappearance of fertility in hybrids. For example: “[f]ertility can be restored by repeated hybrid backcrossing to parental taxa, which can produce increasingly more-fertile hybrids and result in introgression” (p. 27 Newstrom et al., 2003).

Vertical gene transfer – Transfer of genetic information from one organism to another (i.e. offspring) via crossing or sexual recombination. [back to the text]

Suggested change: Vertical gene transfer – Transfer of genetic information from one organism to direct descendants via asexual division, crossing or sexual recombination.

Rationale: still the majority of life on earth reproduces asexually, e.g., by cell division. This life includes all eubacteria, archaebacteria, many fungi and even many plants and some animals. In many cases where organisms can reproduce by crossing or sexual recombination, this is facultative not obligate.


Newstrom, L. E., Armstrong, T., Robertson, A. W., Lee, W. G., Heenan, P. B., Peltzer, D., Wilton, A. D., FitzJohn, R. G., Breitwieser, I. and Glenny, D. (2003). Environmental Risks to the New Zealand Flora from Environmental Risks to the New Zealand Flora from. LC0203/065. Landcare Research New Zealand, Ltd. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biodiversity/geneflow.

All the best

I believe it would be more appropriate for the AHTEG to use published definitions when they are available.  We have done this for some terms, but could make a concerted effort to search for published definitions.  For example, I believe terms like "gene flow" and "horizontal gene transfer" can be found in sources like the "Glossary of Biotechnology for Food and Agriculture: A Revised and Augmented Edition of the Glossary of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering" (ref 41482 in the BIRC). Definitions not found in published sources should be set aside for more discussion to ensure clarity and agreement. 

As I am traveling for the next few days, I cannot do this now.  However, I would be willing to complete this later next week.

Thanks,
Tom

Thanks for the comments from Thomas and Kazuo who asked for references.

I am confused by Kazuo’s comment contrasting my contribution to Hans’, as if they are either or proposals. Since Hans hasn’t made changes or offered references to the specific terms for which I suggested changes, it is not clear to me anyway whether Hans was intending to offer a contrasting view on these words by not editing them in his document. Perhaps Hans would like to speak to this.

In any case, scientific accuracy often goes hand in hand with clarity, thus any definitions that are appropriate in a classroom because they are both accurate and based on sound science should also be quite suited to guidance for scientific risk assessment. I am happy to report that I can supply the necessary credible and peer-reviewed sources for my changes, where they are needed.

Gene flow. The change there was to add a reference to horizontal gene transfer to accompany the reference to vertical. This should be just a matter of housekeeping since both vertical and horizontal are pathways of gene flow (Heinemann, 2007). The latter is, of course, how antibiotic resistance became so common in human pathogens, how crown galls are caused, etc. It is far from unusual for general discussions on gene flow to include both vertical and horizontal pathways (García-Sogo et al., 2009, Heinemann, 2007, Pool and Esnayra, 2001), although since most of the literature on GMOs is on plants, we tend to get specific definitions that exclude HGT cropping (pun acknowledged) up. Since we are offering guidance of a general nature, we should offer inclusive definitions.

Horizontal Gene Transfer. The definition I offer, which again I assert is the most appropriate for a document on risk assessment and one offering guidance on the modification of any organism, not just plants, has extensive history of use in the risk assessment literature including the New Zealand regulator (ERMANZ, 2006, Heinemann, 2007, Heinemann and Bungard, 2005, Heinemann and Kurenbach, 2009, Heinemann et al., 2011, Heinemann and Traavik, 2004).

Introgression reference (Heinemann, 2007)

Vertical gene transfer. The biological inconsistency of the existing definition should be self evident. Literal interpretation of the existing definition would be default include every somatic cell division, every bacterial and most fungal reproduction as horizontal, which it clearly is not! However, wherever horizontal gene transfer has been defined (above) the reference provides a contrasting implied definition of vertical further satisfying any call for references. Here is a specific source (Heinemann, 1991).

ERMANZ (2006). Risk assessment of horizontal gene transfer from GM plants to bacteria and human cells. ER-GI-05-1 07/06. ERMA New Zealand.

García-Sogo, B., Pineda, B., Castelblanque, L., Antón, T., Medina, M., Roque, E., Torresi, C., Beltrán, J., Moreno, V. and Cañas, L. (2009). Efficient transformation of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana and production of male-sterile plants by engineered anther ablation. Pl Cell Rep 29, 61-77.

Heinemann, J. A. (1991). Genetics of gene transfer between species. Trends Genet. 7, 181-185.

Heinemann, J. A. (2007). A typology of the effects of (trans)gene flow on the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources. Bsp35rev1. UN FAO. ftp://ftp.fao.org/ag/cgrfa/bsp/bsp35r1e.pdf.

Heinemann, J. A. and Bungard, R. A. (2005). Horizontal Gene Transfer. In Encyclopedia of Molecular Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine, R. A. Meyers, ed. (Wiley VCH).

Heinemann, J. A. and Kurenbach, B. (2009). Horizontal Gene Transfer. In Encyclopedia of Microbiology, M. Schaechter, ed. (San Diego, Elsevier), pp. 1-10.

Heinemann, J. A., Kurenbach, B. and Bleyendaal, N. (2011). Evaluation of horizontal gene transfer monitoring experiments conducted in New Zealand between 2004 and 2009. J. Org. Sys. 6, 3-19.

Heinemann, J. A. and Traavik, T. (2004). Problems in monitoring horizontal gene transfer in field trials of transgenic plants. Nat. Biotechnol. 22, 1105-1109.

Pool, R. and Esnayra, J. (2001). The rationale for ecological monitoring (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press).

Best to everyone

Dear Manoela,

I attach the text of the use of terms, with a number of comments in tracked changes.

Best regards,

Hans

Jack,. Tom, hans and all:

Gene flow vs (Or plus) gene transfer

I believe both of words are well defined in academic and professional forums and following the published definition is the right way. With the thinking, Tom is right and Hans docs are more comprehensive and clear than Jack's argument.

Sound-science debate is appreciated for enhancing recognition on ambiguous points of the background information on the use of terms. However, again considering the potential users of the roadmap guidance doc and other specialized topics, having extensive contents is not advantage nor supportive for the novice users. Simple but comprehensive explanation would be suitable for the beginners on the Use of terms.  There are probably two schools here. The argument which was raised by Jack, maybe yet suitable at a class or  meeting to argue based on whatever available information, but not for the users of the roadmap guidance doc: it is burden and not user-friendly. Only contents which are universally accepted or which are associated with large heterogenous forums recognized such as OECD, should be provided, and those which information provided by with small group yet that scientific communities have questions /debates, should be refrained.

Have a nice weekend!

regards,


Kazuo

POSTED ON BEHALF OF BEATRIX TAPPESER

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Dear All

I apologize for being a bit late but because of a missunderstanding I thought I could still comment today (the 25th)

Please find my comments in the attached doc in track changes.

In addition I like to comment on Hans and Jacks proposals:

to start with Hans and do it in a short way:
I agree with the comments b2, b4, b5 b13 and b15. I do not agree with b17 and also b7.

concerning Jacks comments on horizontal and vertical gene transfer: I think Jacks definitions are more exacte and I would prefer these.

Our comments and proposals are in the attachment.

Once again apologies for being late.
Best regards

Beatrix

POSTED ON BEHALF OF RICARDA STEINBRECHER

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Dear Manoela,

Sorry for running a bit behind schedule - hope its still just in time.

please find attached my comments to the Use of Terms. They are not in
track changes as I was working with a pdf version - sorry.

With kind regards,
Ricarda