Past activities 2010 - 2012

The first living modified plants introduced on the market incorporated single transformation events. Using event-specific detection methods, e.g. methods to detect a single transformation event such as MON810 or T25, meant that if a laboratory detected the transformation event, it knew exactly which LMO was in the sample. As the technology has progressed, however, developers are increasingly incorporating or ‘stacking’ multiple transformation events into one plant. According to the information in the BCH, no fewer than nine different stacked LMOs have been developed using MON810 as a parent and two stacked LMOs have been developed with T25. These include one LMO developed through a crossing between MON810 and T25. Detection and identification of LMOs in bulk samples (e.g. seed lots or grain shipments) is thus becoming increasingly complex. Detecting the MON810 event in a mixture of seeds may mean that the sample contains any one or more of the nine stacked LMOs and/or the parental MON810. Furthermore, if both MON810 and T25 are detected in a sample, it is impossible to know whether the sample contains some LMOs with MON810 and others with T25, just LMOs with the stacked transformation events or some combination of all three LMOs.

    * How are laboratories responding to the challenge of identifying LMOs in light of the stacking of transformation events?

Posted on behalf of Gurinder Jit Randhawa:

Dear Kathryn

To develop diagnostics for stacked event is a great challenge for which we need to have dialogue and consensus for developing effective approaches.

Using sampling or sub-sampling strategies, detection systems for stacked events could be developed.

Kind Regards

Dr. (Mrs.) Gurinder Jit Randhawa
Principal Scientist
National Research Centre on DNA Fingerprinting
National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources
New Delhi-110012, INDIA