Potential Unintended Effects of Genetic Technologies in Plants

Dear Colleagues,

Modifying the genetics of what we eat and feed has been present throughout humankind history. Domesticating plant species, which is the process whereby wild plants have been evolved into crop plants through artificial selection, has been crucial to the development of agriculture. When this selection process became more conscientious and intentional, it evolved into ‘crop breeding’ – the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. Until then, genetic modification was indirect, through the selection of the phenotype. Recombinant DNA, in which chimeric DNA molecules are constructed in vitro and then propagated in a host cell or organism, arrived; genetic modification became direct and beyond sexual barriers. Transgenesis then turned into a reality in crop breeding and it now corresponds to 95% adoption area for some of the world’s major agricultural countries (i.e., USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and India. Gene-editing was the next technological step in line, and it advances from classical genetic engineering due to its ability to (1) modify target genes in vivo, and not only in vitro, followed by re-introduction; (2) increase the efficiency of introducing the intended modification at an intended place; and (3) increase the range of organisms in which the first two possibilities can be achieved. Nonetheless, genetic modification has triggered legitimate risk assessment procedures due to their lack of ‘history of safe use’ as provided in several domestic and international regulations.

In that context, new analytical methods for the molecular characterization of next generation GMOs will have to consider new aspects of genetic modification. One aspect is related to the spectrum of changes at the intended site (i.e., the nucleotide changes at target sequence). A second aspect refers to the spectrum of sites that have been changed. Thus, unintended effects might arise from both target site and off- target sites. In addition, detecting unintended off-target changes can be more challenging than detecting changes at target sites because the number and position of nucleotide changes are unknown. A third aspect is not dependent on the nucleic acid sequence modified, but the timeframe (e.g., temporary or permanent) and the scale of the modification (e.g., ecosystems level).

Therefore, for this Special Issue we encourage submissions of articles (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modeling approaches, and methods) that focus on  transgene regulation and the impact of genetic modification in plant biochemistry pathways, physiology, genes, proteins, metabolites, nutrition, and environment at all levels comprising transcriptome, proteome, metabolome and epigenome studies, plant microbiomes, etc., as well as the analysis of the impact of genetic modifications at larger scales, in the environment and in food production context.

Dr. Sarah Agapito-Tenfen
Prof. Zhengqiang Ma
Dr. Michael Eckerstorfer
Guest Editors

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