Risk analysis of genetically modified crops (GMPs) - Introgression of genes between crops and wild relatives

Genetic modification differs from traditional breeding in that new traits can be added to plants at a high rate, and that the traits are usually introduced many at a time as precisely designed stacks of genes with their own regulating sequences. The possible risks are that transgenic phenotypes with altered fitness could change in abundance in the ecosystem, with unwanted effects on other species and on ecosystem integrity, or that the transgenic plants affect the ecosystems indirectly. Our biological risk assessment is interdisciplinary, as it is linked to sociological and ethical perspectives of GMP-cultivation in the Center for Bioethics and Risk Assessment.

Our risk analysis provide information about the following:

Transfer of transgenes by spontaneous crosses between crops and weedy or wild relatives

• Gene flow from GM crops to their wild relatives in nature
• How to reduce gene dispersal from GM crops

Fitness of crop relatives that received the transgene by introgression

• Effects of environmental conditions on the fitness of the new crops and their hybrids with wild relatives

Expression of the transgene once it has been introduced into a different genetic background

• Effects on gene expression from environmental conditions

Efficiency of methods for biological containment of transgenic crops

• Male sterility, transplastomics and control of flowering
  

The current projects are funded by the EU project ANGEL (Analysis of gene flow from crop to wild forms in lettuce and chicory and its population-ecological consequences in the context of GM-crop biosafety; http://www.plant.wageningen-ur.nl/projects/angel/) and by national grants.