Gene-edited mushroom escapes US government regulation

[HuckleB]

http://www.nature.com/news/gene-edited-mushroom-escapes-us-government-regulation-1.19754

"...

Yinong Yang, a plant pathologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, engineered the mushroom — the common white button (Agaricus bisporus) — to resist browning. The effect is achieved by targeting the family of genes coding for polyphenol oxidase (PPO) — an enzyme that causes browning. By deleting just a handful of base pairs in the mushroom’s genome, Yang knocked out one of six PPO genes — reducing the enzyme's activity by 30%.

The mushroom is one of over 30 genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to sidestep the American regulatory system in the last five years. In each case, the USDA‘s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has said that the organisms — mostly plants — don’t qualify as something the agency must regulate.

Several of those unregulated plants were made using gene-editing techniques such as the zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) and transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN) systems. But until now, it was not clear whether the USDA would give the same pass to organisms engineered with science’s hottest new tool, CRISPR–Cas9.

...

Yang's mushroom did not trigger US regulatory oversight because it does not contain foreign DNA from 'plant pests' such as viruses or bacteria. Such organisms were common tools for genetically modifying plants in the early days of the biotechnology industry, when the US government developed its framework for regulating GMOs. But it has been decades since those rules were updated, and newer gene-editing techniques that do not involve plant pests are quickly supplanting the old tools.

..."


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Hmm.

[progressoid]

1. ruh roh

[HuckleB]

2. Such a fantastic sonf, too.