Gene deletor: a new tool to address gene flow and food safety concerns over transgenic crop plants

Abstract

Environmental and food safety concerns over transgenic plants have hampered commercial applications of transgenic plant technology worldwide. A recently developed transgene deletion technology, named gene deletor technology, may be used to eliminate all transgenes from pollen, seeds, fruits or other organs when functions of transgenes are no longer needed or their presence may cause concerns. In this review, I will briefly describe the principle of the gene deletor technology with major supporting experimental data. I will also explain main characteristics and requirements of the gene deletor technology. Finally, I will discuss the gene deletor technology in the context of how it may be used to alleviate environmental and food safety concerns over transgenic plants in vegetatively and sexually propagated plants, to prevent volunteer transgenic plants, to protect proprietary transgenic technologies, and to allow farmers to reuse their harvested seeds for future planting.

Keywords

Gene deletor / pollen-mediated gene flow / seed-mediated gene flow / food safety / transgene deletion / transgenic plants / loxP/Cre / FLP/FRT / volunteer transgenic plants / proprietary technologies

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Acknowledgments

USDA NIFA, Connecticut Innovation, Inc., Consortium of Plant Biotechnology Research, Inc. (CPBR), and University of Connecticut Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station are acknowledged for financial support of the gene deletor research project.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg