Comments on: GMOs: Further Study Needed http://civileats.com/2009/12/21/gmos-further-study-needed/ Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 24 May 2012 16:03:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: James http://civileats.com/2009/12/21/gmos-further-study-needed/comment-page-1/#comment-4875 James Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:20:47 +0000 http://civileats.com/?p=5877#comment-4875 I do not believe you're correctly explaining insertional mutagenesis. Yes that's a real thing, and can be causes by a transgene landing within the coding sequence (or even the promoter) of another, existing, gene. But this is a relatively easy thing to check for, and I believe such testing is required for new transgenic events. The known sequence of the transgene is used as a starting site to sequence parts of the genome to either side of the transgene. The results are, firstly, that researchers can see if they landed in a gene, and secondly, if they're working in a crop with a sequenced genome such as soybean or maize, they can identify the location of the insertion. So insertional mutagenesis can happen (it has been used to great effect in Arabidopsis to study the effects of knocking out individual genes), but it's easy to check for and discard. I'd be interested to hear an example (real or hypothetical) of how breaking a gene (even if the breakage wasn't easy caught and discarded) would result in the production of a new toxin by the plant. I do not believe you’re correctly explaining insertional mutagenesis. Yes that’s a real thing, and can be causes by a transgene landing within the coding sequence (or even the promoter) of another, existing, gene. But this is a relatively easy thing to check for, and I believe such testing is required for new transgenic events.

The known sequence of the transgene is used as a starting site to sequence parts of the genome to either side of the transgene. The results are, firstly, that researchers can see if they landed in a gene, and secondly, if they’re working in a crop with a sequenced genome such as soybean or maize, they can identify the location of the insertion.

So insertional mutagenesis can happen (it has been used to great effect in Arabidopsis to study the effects of knocking out individual genes), but it’s easy to check for and discard. I’d be interested to hear an example (real or hypothetical) of how breaking a gene (even if the breakage wasn’t easy caught and discarded) would result in the production of a new toxin by the plant.

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