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Moderated conference on Genomics in Food and Agriculture

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Fri, 8 Mar 2013 09:50:15 +0100
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This is from Drew L. Kershen, University of Oklahoma, United States.

In answer to the query in Message 3 by Dr. Rai, requesting examples (a list) of the efficiency of genomics and other biotech tools, I respond with several. Although not a scientist, I work on legal issues related to modern breeding techniques. Due to that work, I have learned some examples or citations as follows.

Insect resistance in soybeans is conditioned by 3 major genes, any of which gives resistance. Prior to the availability of genomic tools, it was not possible to tell if plants had 1, 2 or 3 of the genes because all condition for the same trait. Secondly, the wild plants with these genes have a lot of very undesirable traits. Thus, prior to the advent of genomic tools, there were 40 years of breeding attempts whereby the breeder either got the agronomic qualities back but lost the insect resistance, or vice versa. With genomic tools, such linkage drag is significantly decreased as an issue.

An example of conventional and transgenic approaches complementing each other exists for virus resistance in cassava. Conventional resistance was available for one virus, but not for the other and both techniques are needed for crop protection in the target area. (H. Vanderschuren, et al., Exploiting the combination of natural and genetically engineered resistance to cassava mosaic and cassava brown streak viruses impacting cassava production in Africa, PLoS One (Sept. 2012) 7:e45277 - http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045277).

A specific project by Two Blades Foundation is to move a bacterial spot resistance gene from pepper into tomato. If successful, this new tomato variety would replace copper sprays for bacterial control. The solution was unamenable to conventional breeding because peppers and tomatoes do not cross. Furthermore, good natural resistance to the bacterial spot has not been found in tomato. (D.M. Horvath, et al., Transgenic resistance confers effective field level control of bacterial spot disease in tomato, PLoS One (Aug. 2012) 7:e42036 - http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0042036). 

Middle-sized companies in the vegetable breeding area routinely generate tens of millions of data points annually for genotyping using molecular markers enabled by genomic sequencing and mapping. The breeding is conventional, but hugely enabled and made more cost-effective by molecular markers. Genomic sequencing is routine for major disease resistance and quality trait genes in most of these crops. The use of markers becomes so much more efficient than the traditional methods, which require screening the whole population for all of the diseases.  

Some things can't be done by conventional breeding where there is a genetic glass ceiling - i.e., the needed gene does not exist in the species or its interbreeding relatives. The various virus and other disease resistance are examples. For a book that provides a goodly number of examples of this genetic glass ceiling, J. Gressel, Genetic Glass Ceiling: Transgenics for Crop Biodiversity (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008) 461 pp.

Drew L. Kershen
Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law (Emeritus)
University of Oklahoma, College of Law
300 West Timberdell Road
Norman, Oklahoma 73019-5081 
U.S.A.
p 1-405-325-4784
f  1-405-325-0389
e-mail: dkershen (at) ou.edu
http://jay.law.ou.edu/faculty/kershen/

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