Germany
January 13, 2007
Source:
GMO Safety
In Gatersleben
(Saxony-Anhalt) there are plans for a field trial with
genetically modified peas. They have been developed by
Novoplant, a small plant biotech firm. If the concept works, the
idea is for the GM peas to be mixed with pig feed – to prevent
intestinal infections.
It is not the first time that GM plants that produce active
pharmaceutical substances have been tested on small areas in
Germany. Last year there was a field trial near Rostock
involving various GM potato lines, one of which contained an
active substance that triggers inoculation protection against a
rabbit disease triggered by viruses. This strategy – using
plants as a production system for vaccines or drugs, is being
followed around the world by various research bodies and
companies.
Mixing antibiotics with animal feed has been banned in the EU
for over a year. They may be used only as animal medicine, but
not to promote growth or as a standard prophylaxis against
infectious diseases.
The animal feed industry is therefore looking for new ways of
protecting animals against infectious diseases. In addition, a
number of antibiotic agents have become ineffective because mass
use of them has led to the spread of resistant pathogens.
Novoplant, one of the new plant biotech firms that have set up
in the area around the IPK (Leibnitz Institute of Plant Genetics
and Crop Plant Research) in Gatersleben, is working on a new
approach. The aim is to give feed crops the ability to produce
antibodies against certain infectious diseases by inserting
suitable genes. If these GM plants are mixed with the animal
feed, the animals will ingest the antibodies. These take the
form of certain surface proteins of the pathogens, thereby
preventing them from attaching to the cells of the intestinal
wall. The antibodies present in the feed peas have the effect of
a ‘passive inoculation’. According to Novoplant, this means that
they supplement the animals’ own immune system.
Feed to counter infectious diseases – ready for market by
2010?
Novoplant has developed four
different GM pea lines that each produce specific antibodies for
a particular infectious disease. According to Novoplant’s
managing director, Dieter Falkenburg, the first of these new
feed additives should be ready for market in 2010.
The furthest advanced are the GM peas for which Novoplant has
now applied for deliberate release authorisation. A complex gene
construct consisting of several elements has been introduced
into the peas so that they produce "single-chain antibodies".
These bind to a particular site on the surface of Escherichia
coli bacteria , which trigger intestinal infections in pigs. The
antibodies are produced only in the seeds and not in the rest of
the plant.
The herbicide resistance (bar) gene used as a marker gene in an
early phase of the development is no longer present in the GM
peas. It was possible to remove the marker gene during selection
of the progeny of the parent line because the marker and target
genes had been inserted into the pea genome separately. This
cotransformation process is one of the new gene transfer methods
that has been refined within biological safety research and
which make it possible to integrate only the target gene and to
remove DNA sequences that are needed only for technical reasons.
500 metre separation distance: the safety precautions
Planned for the 2007 growing
season, the trial is to investigate whether the GM peas behave
in the same way in the field as they did in tests conducted in
the greenhouse. The researchers are interested in the genetic
stability of the peas and the antibody yield that can be
achieved under field conditions. Novoplant also wants to use the
trials to obtain plant material for animal trials.
The company has applied to release around 600 transgenic pea
plants on a plot measuring 100m2 within a trial site of 0.1
hectares. The pea line was tested in field trials in the USA in
2005.
Peas are largely self-fertilising and have no relatives in
Europe. Insects could produce isolated incrossings to other pea
crops. In order to prevent antibody peas from spreading beyond
the release area, various safety precautions are planned. There
is a distance of at least 500 metres between the trial site and
the propagation fields on which some of the pea varieties stored
in the Gatersleben gene bank are propagated. The nearest
farmland is about one kilometre away. In addition, no antibodies
are formed in the pollen of the GM pea plants.
After evaluation, the harvested plant material is to be
destroyed or stored in a closed container. At the end of the
trial, the plot is to be left unused for a year. Any pea plants
that emerge are to be examined and destroyed.
The trial has not yet been authorised by the Federal Office of
Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). The application
documents will remain open to public inspection at the BVL in
Berlin and at the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Seeland, 06469
Nachterstedt, until 12 February 2007. Objections are possible
until 12 March, after which date it will be decided whether the
release trial can be approved.
Other news from
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