Heinemann Jack A, Traavik Terje
New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology, University of Canterbury, 8020, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Nat Biotechnol. 2004 Sep;22(9):1105-9. doi: 10.1038/nbt1009.
Transgenic crops are approved for release in some countries, while many more countries are wrestling with the issue of how to conduct risk assessments. Controls on field trials often include monitoring of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from crops to surrounding soil microorganisms. Our analysis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and of the sensitivity of current techniques for monitoring HGT from transgenic plants to soil microorganisms has two major implications for field trial assessments of transgenic crops: first, HGT from transgenic plants to microbes could still have an environmental impact at a frequency approximately a trillion times lower than the current risk assessment literature estimates the frequency to be; and second, current methods of environmental sampling to capture genes or traits in a recombinant are too insensitive for monitoring evolution by HGT. A model for HGT involving iterative short-patch events explains how HGT can occur at high frequencies but be detected at extremely low frequencies.
转基因作物在一些国家已获批投放市场，而更多国家正在努力解决如何进行风险评估的问题。对田间试验的管控通常包括监测基因从作物向周围土壤微生物的横向转移（HGT）。我们对抗生素抗性细菌以及当前监测转基因植物向土壤微生物进行HGT的技术敏感性进行的分析，对转基因作物的田间试验评估有两个主要影响：其一，基因从转基因植物向微生物的横向转移对环境仍可能产生影响，但其发生频率比当前风险评估文献所估计的频率低约一万亿倍；其二，当前用于在重组体中捕获基因或性状的环境采样方法对于监测由HGT导致的进化而言灵敏度太低。一个涉及迭代短片段事件的HGT模型解释了HGT如何能够高频发生但却只能以极低频率被检测到。
