1.
In your own words,
but using the correct scientific terms, explain one method for producing a
cisgenic plant.
A cisgenic plant is
described as a crop plant that has been genetically modified with one or more
genes isolated from a crossable donor plant [2]. It combines traditional techniques with modern
biotechnology and dramatically speeds up the breeding process. This allows
plant genomes to be modified while remaining plants within the gene pool. Therefore,
cisgenic plants should not be assessed as transgenics for environmental
impacts.
One method is electro-transfection, which is the application of
strong electric field pulses to cells and tissue is known to cause some type of
structural rearrangement of the cell membrane resulting in a temporary increase
in porosity and providing a local driving force for ionic and molecular
transport through the pores.[4]
2.
How is this process
similar and how is it different from producing a transgenic plant?
Cisgenesis is
described as specific alleles/genes in the breeder’s gene pool are introduced
into new varieties without the accompanying linkage drag (co-transfer of DNA
sequences that are linked to the gene of interest) which occurs in conventional
breeding. In contrast, a transgenic plant receives gene(s) from a non-plant
organism, or from a donor plant that is sexually incompatible with the
recipient plant. [2].
3.
How is the result of the cisgenic breeding process different from a
classically bred plant? How is it similar?
In
traditional breeding, obtaining desired traits is painstakingly slow and one
challenge is the low affinity between wild and cultivated varieties. Techniques
such as embryo rescues, cross bridges and somatic cell hybridization help
overcome this obstacle. [2]
Compared with
induced translocation and introgression breeding, cisgenesis is an improvement
for gene transfer from crossable plants. The similarity of the genes used in
cisgenesis compared with classical breeding is a compelling argument to
translocation breeding, the insertion site of the genes is a priori unknown, as
it is in cisgenesis. [1]
4.
What are the safety
concerns of cisgenic plants? Are they different in transgenic plants? Are they
different from classically bred plants?
Cisgenesis is not
any different from traditional breeding or that which occurs in nature. There
is no environmental risk evoked and release of cisgenic plants into the
environment is as safe as that of traditionally bred plants, so they
have the same hazards. However, the transformation techniques used in
cisgenesis and transgenesis are the same, so they have similar risk linked to
transfer technology. [2]
5. In your opinion, is it correct to treat cisgenic
plants like transgenic plants?
Now, cisgenic
plants fall under regulations designed for transgenic organisms, possibly
because there have not yet been any applications for the approval of the
deliberate release of cisgenic plants into the environment [3] .
In my opinion, cisgenic
plants are fundamentally different from transgenic plants, therefore they should
be treated differently under GMO regulations.
Literature:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4127943/ [2]
http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=biotech.2008.385.402 [4]
http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=biotech.2008.385.402 [4]
