Institute of Plant Quarantine, Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, Beijing, 100176, China.
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 21;11(1):2050. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-81637-2.
Genetic engineering (GM) has great potential to improve maize productivity, but rises some concerns on unintended effects, and equivalent as their comparators. There are some limitations through targeted analysis to detect the UE in genetically modified organisms in many previous studies. We here reported a case-study on the effects of introducing herbicides and insect resistance (HIR) gene cassette on molecular profiling (transcripts and metabolites) in a popular maize variety Zhengdan958 (ZD958) in China. We found that introducing HIR gene cassette bring a limited numbers of differential abundant genes (DAGs) or differential abundant metabolites (DAMs) between transgenic events and non-transgenic control. In contrast, averaged 10 times more DAGs and DAMs were observed when performed comparison under different growing environments in three different ecological regions of China than the numbers induced by gene effects. Major biological pathways relating to stress response or signaling transduction could explain somehow the effects of growing environments. We further compared two transgenic events mediated ZD958 (GM-ZD958) with either transgenic parent GM-Z58, and other genetic background nonGM-Z58, nonGM-ZD958, and Chang7-2. We found that the numbers of DAGs and DAMs between GM-ZD958 and its one parent maize variety, Z58 or GM-Z58 is equivalent, but not Chang7-2. These findings suggest that greater effects due to different genetic background on altered molecular profiling than gene modification itself. This study provides a case evidence indicating marginal effects of gene pleiotropic effects, and environmental effects should be emphasized.
遗传工程（GM）具有极大提高玉米生产力的潜力，但也引起了对非预期影响的关注，与它们的对照物相当。在许多先前的研究中，通过靶向分析来检测遗传修饰生物体中的非预期效应存在一些局限性。我们在这里报告了一个案例研究，即在我国流行的玉米品种郑单 958（ZD958）中引入除草剂和抗虫（HIR）基因盒对分子谱（转录物和代谢物）的影响。我们发现，引入 HIR 基因盒会导致转基因事件与非转基因对照之间的差异丰度基因（DAG）或差异丰度代谢物（DAM）数量有限。相比之下，在中国三个不同生态区的三种不同生长环境下进行比较时，观察到的 DAG 和 DAM 的数量平均比基因效应诱导的数量多 10 倍。与应激反应或信号转导相关的主要生物学途径可以在某种程度上解释生长环境的影响。我们进一步比较了两个转基因事件介导的 ZD958（GM-ZD958）与其一个转基因亲本 GM-Z58，以及其他遗传背景的非 GM-Z58、非 GM-ZD958 和 Chang7-2。我们发现，GM-ZD958 与其亲本玉米品种 Z58 或 GM-Z58 之间的 DAG 和 DAM 数量相当，但与 Chang7-2 不同。这些发现表明，由于遗传背景的不同对改变的分子谱的影响大于基因修饰本身。本研究提供了一个案例证据，表明基因多效性的影响较小，应强调环境影响。
