NEW FINDINGS — AGRICULTURE
Genome of promising biofuel grass sequenced A lot of fuel is required to keep our country running. Americans use an average of 390 million gallons of motor gasoline and 197 million gallons of aviation gasoline, per day, to fuel planes, trains, and automobiles. Most of the fuel that we currently consume is fossil fuel formed from the fossilized, buried remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.
USDA, EPA update biotechnology crop regulations
In America, crops developed with genetic technology are regulated by three federal agencies. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees whether any genetically engineered (GE) plant poses a risk to become a plant pest in the environ- ment. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates those GE plants that produce biochemicals used as pesticides. The Food and Drug Adminis- tration (FDA) ensures the safety and label- ing of all GE plant-derived food and feed. The USDA and the EPA modified their regulatory requirements in 2020, allow-
Fossil fuels are an exhaustible resource that will eventually run out. Burning fossil fuels can also have negative impacts on our environment through air and water pollution and the release of carbon dioxide, a known greenhouse gas thought to contribute to global warming. Biofuels are promising substitutes for fossil fuels that are produced from renewable, organic (carbon-containing) materials like plant matter and animal waste. These materials, termed biomass, include agricultural crops and agricultural waste, algae, dedicated energy crops, and forestry residues. Miscanthus grasses, which are used in gardens, paper production, and roofing, are a promising source of biomass. A team of researchers recently sequenced the full genome of an or- namental variety of miscanthus. The high-quality genome sequence will help researchers identify genes associated with traits of interest in miscanthus so they can breed or modify plants to improve certain processes such as biomass output and the ability to bounce back after winter. The genome sequence will also allow researchers to bet- ter understand other grasses that may be useful as biomass crops. REFERENCE: Mitros T. et al. Genome biology of the paleotetraploid perennial biomass crop Miscanthus, Nature Communications (2021) 11:5442. DOI: 10.1038/s41467- 020-18923-6. The laboratory of HudsonAlpha faculty researcher Kankshita Swaminathan PhD contributed to this work. Golden rice receives approval Vitamins and minerals are essential for healthy development, disease prevention, and wellbeing. Because most vitamins are not produced by the body, small amounts must be obtained from the diet. Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children and increases the risk of disease and death from severe infections such as diarrheal disease and measles. Low- and middle-income countries, whose diets are based mainly upon rice or other carbohy- drate-rich, micronutrient-poor calorie sources, bear the dispropor- tionate burden of vitamin A deficiencies. In the late 1990s, scientists developed a genetically modified rice, called golden rice, that could help combat vitamin A deficiency by providing consumers with beta-carotene their bodies could use to make vitamin A. Rice naturally possesses the components necessary to synthesize beta-carotene but the synthesis process is turned off in the edible rice grain. By introducing two genes into the rice, the pathway is turned on and beta-carotene accumulates in the grain. Studies have shown that one-cup of cooked golden rice provides 50 percent of the daily recommended allotment of vitamin A. Although golden rice has the potential to combat vitamin A deficiency, it just saw its first approval for use in 2020—almost two decades after it was first developed. The government of the Philippines announced that it was safe for consumption and could be planted for commercial use.
ing certain categories of GE plants to bypass the regulatory process if they met specific conditions. Previously, developers of GE crops had to undergo a lengthy approval process to show their products weren’t plant pests. Under the modified USDA regulations, plants created with biotechnology are exempt from regulatory approval if:
• the modified plants don’t pose a plant pest risk • conventional breeding techniques could have developed the same type of plant • the trait combinations are identical to previously-approved plants
The regulations also affirm that as long as there is no plant pest risk, crops developed using gene editing techniques will not require regulatory approval. The USDA has published a list of exempt plant-trait combinations, which developers can use to determine whether a new GE plant requires regulatory approv- al. Developers can also submit an “Am I Regulated?” request to the USDA for regulatory determination. Similarly, the EPA's updated rules state that plants engineered to produce pesticides are exempt from regulatory approval if they have a low-risk and could have been created using tradi- tional breeding approaches. Proponents note the new rules are based on decades of sci- entific research on agricultural biotechnology. They argue that streamlining the regulatory process reduces regulatory burdens for low-risk plants increasing the likelihood of innovation in new product development. However, some environmental and public health advocacy groups say the rules now leave most geneti- cally engineered plants unregulated by the USDA and the EPA, leaving consumers unaware of new biotech products. The new rules don’t affect the food safety oversight role of the FDA. REFERENCES: www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/biotechnology/bio- tech-rule-revision/secure-rule/secure-about www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-09/documents/10014-10- prepub-fr-doc-admin_esignature2020-08-31.pdf
REFERENCE: https://modernfarmer.com/2021/07/philippines-becomes-first-coun- try-to-approve-gmo-golden-rice/
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