Transgenic soybean

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As Transgenic soybean is called by methods of agricultural biotechnology altered soybean plants . As with other genetically modified plants, alien genes are introduced into the soybeans and thus properties are achieved that conventional plant breeding would not be able to achieve, or could only achieve over the long term.

features

At the beginning of 2018, 37 different transformation events in soybeans were approved for commercial cultivation, with the focus on herbicide resistance and insect resistance.

Herbicide resistance

Main article: Herbicide tolerant soybean

Herbicide tolerance of soybeans is a popular trait because it is easy to control weeds. The main herbicides used are glyphosate , glufosinate , dicamba , sulfonylurea and dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D).

Since herbicide- resistant weeds appear quite frequently , genetically modified soybeans, which contain several different resistance genes, are used. In Enlist ™, resistances to glufosinate and 2,4-D are combined (stacked), while Genuity® Roundup Ready ™ 2 Xtend ™ is resistant to glyphosate and dicamba.

Insect resistance

All over the world, various caterpillars cause feeding damage to soybeans, so that control is inevitable. Various Bt toxins were introduced into soybeans in order to impart resistance to insects . In Brazil, the owl butterfly species Heliothis virescens causes major feeding damage. To contain this damage, the soy variety Intacta ™ Roundup Ready ™ 2 Pro, in which the Bt toxin Cry1Ac is combined with glyphosate resistance, has proven itself since 2014.

Drought and salt tolerance

In 2015, a transgenic drought-tolerant soybean (Verdaca HB4) was approved for cultivation in Argentina. The drought tolerance results from the transfer of a regulatory gene from the sunflower .

A salt and drought tolerant soybean was produced by genome editing , in which two genes (Drb2a and Drb2b) were inactivated using the CRISPR / Cas method . Since this soybean does not contain any foreign DNA, the United States Department of Agriculture approved cultivation for the USA without further testing. It is currently unclear whether this genome-edited soybean fulfills the expected properties in field trials.

Changed oil properties

The soybean oil has a high proportion of multiple unsaturated fatty acids , which are rather unsuitable sensitive to oxidation and thus for use in Nährungsbereich. The oil of the transgenic soy variety Plenish TM from Pioneer Hi-Bred contains less polyunsaturated linoleic and linolenic acid , but more monounsaturated oleic acid . This leads to a longer shelf life and increased heat resistance of the oil, which reduces the proportion of trans fatty acids classified as unhealthy when frying or deep-frying . A comparable soybean is Vistive Gold TM by Monsanto . Both types of soy are transgenic, as they contain gene constructs from other species in order to dampen the activity of certain genes in lipid metabolism through RNA interference . They are approved for cultivation in the USA and Canada, but so far of no commercial interest.

In 2016, the company Calyxt inactivated three genes of lipid metabolism through genome editing , so that soybean oil contains more than 80% oleic acid and less than 3% each of linolenic and linoleic acid. Since this genome-edited soybean does not contain any foreign DNA, it is not considered a GMO in the USA , so no special safety research is necessary. In spring 2019, the company Calyxt announced that it had introduced the soybean oil Calyno from these genome-edited soybeans onto the US market as a food, which has a qualitatively improved composition of fatty acids. This is the first product made from plants obtained by genome editing. The same type of soy was also used to make a corresponding flour for cattle breeding.

In 2011, Monsanto approved a genetically modified soy variety that contains more omega-3 fatty acids in the oil for commercial cultivation in the United States and Canada . This transgenic soy variety contains a gene from both primroses and the mold Neurospora crassa , which leads to a change in the metabolism of fatty acids, so that around 20 to 30% of total fatty acids consists of stearidonic acid . This omega-3 fatty acid is a four-fold unsaturated fatty acid that is converted in the human and animal organism into the high-quality omega-3 fatty acids PUFA , EPA and DHA , which among other things lower cardiovascular risks. Since these omega-3 fatty acids are mainly found in fish, it is hoped that production in plants will help prevent overfishing .

Worldwide cultivation

In 2016, 117 million hectares of soybeans were cultivated worldwide, with genetically modified soybeans growing on 78% of this area (91.4 million hectares). This corresponds to 50% of the cultivated area on which genetically modified plants grow. Herbicide- resistant soybeans were grown on 68 million hectares and soybeans, which are both herbicide and insect resistant , were grown on 23.4 million hectares . The cultivation of transgenic soybeans was limited to the following 11 countries:

rank country Area (10 6 ha)
1 Brazil 32.7
2 United States 31.8
3 Argentina 18.7
4th Paraguay 3.2
5 Canada 2.1
6th Uruguay 1.2
7th Bolivia 1.2
South Africa , Mexico , Chile , Costa Rica 0.5

Economic impact

No genetically modified soybeans are grown in the European Union . However, 19 different genetically modified varieties are approved for import as food and feed. 35 million tons of genetically modified soybeans and soybean raw materials are imported annually, mainly from the United States, Brazil and Argentina.

The cultivation of herbicide-resistant soy has allowed several farmers in South America to plant soy in a year immediately after the wheat harvest, since herbicide treatment does not require plowing. This extra harvest is a major factor in increasing the amount of soy produced and also increasing the financial return. Worldwide, the cultivation of herbicide-tolerant soybeans is said to have resulted in an additional yield of USD 3.82 billion in 2015. This positive effect is offset by the increased use of pesticides. In Brazil, for example, a 3-fold increase in the amount of herbicide used was observed between 2000 and 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ISAAA: Soybean (Glycine max L.) GM Events. Retrieved March 7, 2018 .
  2. ↑ O. Bernardi et al .: High levels of biological activity of Cry1Ac protein expressed on MON 87701 x MON 89788 soybean against Heliothis virescens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In: Pest Manag Sci. 70 (4), 2014, pp. 588-594. doi: 10.1002 / ps.3581
  3. ^ E. Waltz: First stress-tolerant soybean gets go-ahead in Argentina. In: Nature Biotechnology. 33 (7), 2015, pp. 682-682. doi: 10.1038 / nbt0715-682
  4. ^ E. Waltz: With a free pass, CRISPR-edited plants reach market in record time. In: Nature Biotechnology. 36 (1), 2018, pp. 6-7. doi: 10.1038 / nbt0118-6b
  5. ↑ ISAA GM Approval Database: Trade name: litter TM , Plenish TM . Retrieved March 7, 2018 .
  6. ^ E. Waltz: Food firms test fry Pioneer's trans fat-free soybean oil. In: Nat Biotechnol. 28, 2010, pp. 769-770. doi: 10.1038 / nbt0810-769a
  7. ↑ ISAA GM Approval Database: Trade Name: Vistive Gold TM . Retrieved March 7, 2018 .
  8. ↑ ZL Demorest et al .: Direct stacking of sequence-specific nuclease-induced mutations to produce high oleic and low linolenic soybean oil. In: BMC Plant Biol. 16 (1), 2016, p. 225. doi: 10.1186 / s12870-016-0906-1
  9. ↑ Calyxt, Inc .: First Commercial Sale of Calyxt High Oleic Soybean Oil on the US market. Retrieved March 4, 2019 .
  10. ↑ ISAAA: GM Crop Event MON87769. Retrieved March 6, 2018 .
  11. ^ N. Ruiz-Lopez et al: Metabolic engineering of the omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthetic pathway into transgenic plants. In: J Exp Bot. 63 (7), 2012, pp. 2397-2410. doi: 10.1093 / jxb / err454
  12. ↑ ISAAA: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech / GM Crops: 2016. ISAAA Letter No. 52, p. 89. (PDF) Retrieved March 7, 2018 .
  13. ^ European Commission: EU register of authorized GMOs. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Transgenic: Animal feed: It doesn't work without soy imports. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  15. ↑ G. Brookes, P. Barfoot: Farm income and production impacts of using GM crop technology 1996-2015. In: GM Crops Food. 8 (3), 2017, pp. 156–193. doi: 10.1080 / 21645698.2017.1317919
  16. ↑ VES Almeida et al .: Use of genetically modified crops and pesticides in Brazil: growing hazards. In: Cien Saude Colet. 22 (10), 2017, pp. 3333-3339. doi: 10.1590 / 1413-812320172210.17112017