Real-time quantification of wild-type contaminants in glyphosate tolerant soybean.
BACKGROUND
Trait purity is a key factor for the successful utilization of biotech varieties and is currently assessed by analysis of individual seeds or plants. Here we propose a novel PCR-based approach to test trait purity that can be applied to bulk samples. To this aim the insertion site of a transgene is characterized and the corresponding sequence of the wild-type (wt) allele is used as diagnostic target for amplification. As a demonstration, we developed a real-time quantitative PCR method to test purity of glyphosate tolerant (Roundup Ready, RR) soybean.


RESULTS
The soybean wt sequence at the RR locus was characterized and found to be highly conserved among conventional genotypes, thus allowing the detection of possibly any soybean non-trait contaminant. On the other hand, no amplification product was obtained from RR soybean varieties, indicating that the wt sequence is single copy and represents a suitable marker of conventional soybean presence. In addition, results obtained from the analysis of wt-spiked RR samples demonstrate that it is possible to use the real-time PCR assay to quantify the non-trait contamination with an acceptable degree of accuracy.


CONCLUSIONS
In principle this approach could be successfully applied to any transgenic event, provided that the wild-type sequence is conserved and single copy. The main advantages of the assay here described derive from its applicability to bulk samples, which would allow to increase the number of single seeds or plants forming the analytical sample, thus improving accuracy and throughput while containing costs. For these reasons this application of quantitative PCR could represent a useful tool in agricultural biotechnology.
Battistini
Elena
E
Seed Research and Testing Laboratory (LaRAS), Department of Agroenvironmental Sciences and Technologies (DiSTA), Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, viale Fanin 40, Bologna 40127, Italy. ebattistini@agrsci.unibo.it
Noli
Enrico
E
D000483:Alleles; D001483:Base Sequence; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D005998:Glycine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D053209:Herbicide Resistance; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013025:Glycine max / Q000235:genetics*; D019076:Transgenes; D000097797:Glyphosate
D018744:DNA, Plant; D005998:Glycine; D000097797:Glyphosate