Keeping the genie in the bottle: transgene biocontainment by excision in pollen.
Gene flow from transgenic plants is an environmental and regulatory concern. While biocontainment might be achieved using male sterility or transgenic mitigation tools, we believe that perhaps the optimal solution might be simply to remove transgenes from pollen. Male sterility might not be ideal for many pollinators, and might not be implementable using standardized genes. Transgenic mitigation might not be useful to control conspecific gene flow (e.g. crop to crop), and relies on competition and not biocontainment per se. Site-specific recombination systems could allow highly efficient excision of transgenes in pollen to eliminate, or at least minimize, unwanted transgene movement via pollen dispersal. There are other potential biotechnologies, such as zinc finger nucleases, that could be also used for transgene excision.
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Hong S
HS
Moon
Yi
Y
Li
C Neal
CN
Stewart
D003264:Containment of Biohazards / Q000379:methods*; D004260:DNA Repair; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D003851:Deoxyribonucleases / Q000378:metabolism; D051456:Gene Flow; D010945:Plants, Edible / Q000235:genetics*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics*; D011058:Pollen / Q000235:genetics*; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D019076:Transgenes
D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D003851:Deoxyribonucleases