Department of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Environ Manage. 2010 Oct;46(4):531-8. doi: 10.1007/s00267-010-9503-5. Epub 2010 May 29.
Done correctly, cellulosic bioenergy should be both environmentally and economically beneficial. Carbon sequestration and decreased fossil fuel use are both worthy goals in developing next-generation biofuels. We believe that biotechnology will be needed to significantly improve yield and digestibility of dedicated perennial herbaceous biomass feedstocks, such as switchgrass and Miscanthus, which are native to the US and China, respectively. This Forum discusses the sustainability of herbaceous feedstocks relative to the regulation of biotechnology with regards to likely genetically engineered traits. The Forum focuses on two prominent countries wishing to develop their bioeconomies: the US and China. These two countries also share a political desire and regulatory frameworks to enable the commercialization and wide release of transgenic feedstocks with appropriate and safe new genetics. In recent years, regulators in both countries perform regular inspections of transgenic field releases and seriously consider compliance issues, even though the US framework is considered to be more mature and stringent. Transgene flow continues to be a pertinent environmental and regulatory issue with regards to transgenic plants. This concern is largely driven by consumer issues and ecological uncertainties. Regulators are concerned about large-scale releases of transgenic crops that have sexually compatible crops or wild relatives that can stably harbor transgenes via hybridization and introgression. Therefore, prior to the commercialization or extensive field testing of transgenic bioenergy feedstocks, we recommend that mechanisms that ensure biocontainment of transgenes be instituted, especially for perennial grasses. A cautionary case study will be presented in which a plant's biology and ecology conspired against regulatory constraints in a non-biomass crop perennial grass (creeping bentgrass, Agrostis stolonifera), in which biocontainment was not attained. Appropriate technologies that could be applied to perennial grass feedstocks for biocontainment are discussed.
如果操作得当，纤维素生物能源应该既有利于环境，又有利于经济。在开发下一代生物燃料时，碳封存和减少化石燃料的使用都是有价值的目标。我们相信，需要生物技术来显著提高能源草和芒属植物等专性多年生草本生物量饲料的产量和可消化性，它们分别原产于美国和中国。本论坛讨论了与生物技术法规相关的草本饲料的可持续性，以及可能的基因工程特性。该论坛重点关注两个希望发展其生物经济的突出国家：美国和中国。这两个国家也有共同的政治愿望和监管框架，使具有适当和安全新遗传特性的转基因饲料能够商业化和广泛释放。近年来，两国的监管机构都对转基因田间释放进行了定期检查，并认真考虑合规问题，尽管美国的框架被认为更成熟和严格。转基因植物的基因流动仍然是一个与环境和监管相关的重要问题。这种担忧在很大程度上是由消费者问题和生态不确定性驱动的。监管机构担心大规模释放具有性亲和作物或野生亲缘种的转基因作物，这些作物可以通过杂交和渐渗稳定地携带转基因。因此，在商业化或广泛测试转基因生物能源饲料之前，我们建议建立确保转基因生物控制的机制，特别是对于多年生草。将提出一个警示案例研究，其中植物的生物学和生态学与非生物量作物多年生草（匍匐翦股颖，Agrostis stolonifera）的监管限制相抗衡，在这种情况下，没有达到生物控制。还讨论了适用于多年生草饲料的生物控制的适当技术。
