QLK5-1999-01479 Sustainable production of transgenic strawberry plants. Ethical consequences and potential effect on producers, environment and consumers

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Website: www.stud.ntnu.no/studorg/pbs/EU-prosjekt/pm.htm
Summary Information



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Quality of Life - 5.1.1 Sustainable Agriculture - Plant Systems

Contract No:	QLK5-1999-01479
Source:	Progress Report - February 2001 - Abstract

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Progress Report - February 2001 - Abstract

Objectives

The main aim of this project is the production of genetically modified fungus resistant strawberry plants that will be able to be cultivated without the use of fungicides and hence be able to be used under marginal climatic conditions over extended seasons. The economic benefits and risks of commercial employment of the gene-modified plant (GMP) will be followed during plant production by analysing consumer and producer attitudes. In addition, the required ethical and other constraints on any release of the GMP will also be applied. In summary, the project has three lines of research running simultaneously:

• Development of a genetically modified strawberry cultivar resistant to Botrytis cinerea (grey mould) for commercial production in low pesticide agriculture.
• Development and use of questionnaires to determine the attitudes towards ecologically grown transgenic strawberries among consumers and producers. Analysis of the results will disclose the commercial potential of the strawberry.
• Development of an ethical model in which the 'precautionary principle' is central to an integral evaluation framework for assessment of the ethical constraints on the commercial production of a transgenic crop, in particular the strawberry.

Results and Milestones

The overall progress in the project during the first year has been positive. The biological work in the first progress period has focused on the DNA/RNA-level as described in the first two work-packages. Seven strawberry cultivars were finally selected for isolation of PGIP genes. Focus has been on Deliverable D1.1: "Sequences of PGIP genes and alleles in different cultivars" and in the area of isolation of the strawberry PGIP-gene. The sequence of a full-length gene has been obtained. To obtain the sequence of the PGIP gene in strawberry, degenerated primers were designed, using the DNA-sequence of known PGIP-genes from apple and prunus (plant species that belong to the same family as strawberry). Comparison of the DNA-sequences of the obtained PCR-products, using computer programmes and Internet databases, revealed that they show high homology to other PGIP-genes from related species, especially apple (80%) and pear (82%) when compared at the DNA level. Combination of all sequences indicates that the full length coding sequence of the strawberry PGIP gene is 999 bases long and codes for a 332 amino acid peptide.

In the context of the number of PGIP genes in strawberry there is an indication that there are 2 to 3 copies of the PGIP-gene present in the strawberry genome.

During the reported progress period work was also carried out on Deliverable DI.2 "Allele specific primers available for WP 2 and 4". In the search for alleles of the PGIP genes in strawberry, primers were designed using sequences from both ends of the strawberry PGIP sequence that had been obtained. These primers were used to amplify genomic PGIP-sequences of 133l bp. After PCR, the PGIP gene fragments, which represent different alleles, were cloned and subsequently sequenced in order to identify (single base pair) differences. For each cultivar, a number of different clones, containing part of the PGIP gene sequence, were sequenced. The DNA sequences were then aligned using the DNASTAR-software packages SeqManII and GenDoc.

At present a number of methods that can be used to detect the absence or presence of a certain polymorphism in DNA sequences are being evaluated. Work was performed on the sequencing of the PGIP gene in three different strawberry cultivars resulting in the complete sequence of the PGIP gene. Other work, ongoing under WP 2, focused on antibody production specific for PG- and PGIP-proteins that are inputs for later work-packages.

In the sociological part of the project the focus has been on a desk study which creates the basis for two deliverables D7.1 and D7.2 and defines the key questions that will be used in the questionnaires and in-depth interviews with consumers and farmers in later work-packages. The major task of the desk study has been a review of international literature on food risks and gene technology. It also includes results from previous studies concerning public opinion towards biotechnology in selected countries. These analyses are based on comparative data from the extensive Eurobarometer studies from 1993, 1996 and 1999. Based on this, an analytical model for further analysis of European consumer and farmer attitudes concerning GM-food in general and GM-strawberries in particular has been worked out. The consumer analysis and producer analysis will continue in the two following work-packages, and the analytical model will form the basis for these studies.

The ethics part of the project has slightly deviated from the planned schedule due to administrative problems with personnel. The consequence was that all three tasks of WP 10 were conducted simultaneously and completed at the end of month 9 as planned for the complete group of tasks. Work on WP10, Task I has been carried out as planned in the work-package description but using a more extensive group of sources of information on strawberry farming and the impacts of Botrytis cinerea than was originally planned. The work meant finding, reading and integrating into a larger framework, literature from agriculture, molecular biology and ecology. This has resulted in a literature study concerning the negative impact of Botrytis cinerea on strawberry production and the conventional methods for dealing with it. The literature study has been supplemented with the information gathered from research in agriculture and ecology. The result of the fairly wide information gathering is the Deliverable 10.1, a document specifying the morally significant biological and technological issues in this project.

The work on WP 10, Task 2 has resulted in an initial review of the main literature about potentially relevant ethical theories in order to find an appropriate theoretical basis to deal with the case in hand. On the basis of a comparison and evaluation of different ethical theories, a model has been chosen as suitable for the project. This relates the underlying ideas of the 'Precautionary Principle' to deontological and consequentialist approaches within a discourse ethical framework. The deliverable associated with this task specifies both the basic ethical approaches of the group, the rationale behind employing discourse ethics as a framework, as well as a discussion on how to handle the question of the integrity of nature within this framework.

The work on WP 10, Task 2 has been concerned with specification of the ethical approaches and methods that will be used in the development of an ethical evaluation model that is wide enough to include the full range of relevant questions, yet sufficiently restricted to provide results that will be possible to employ in practical politics.

The results of WP 10, Task 3 are primarily a delineation of the social and political issues involved, narrowing down the range of issues that are generally recognised as applying to the development and release of genetically modified plants to the ones that are relevant for this project. Thus this is connected to the specifications developed in Task 1. The respective milestones and expected results have been in accordance with the description presented in the technical annex for the project.

Benefits and Beneficiaries

For the total project the benefits are:

• Insight into consumer acceptance of genetically modified strawberries.
• Insight into the effect of cisformation versus transformation on consumer acceptance (using genes of strawberry only versus using foreign genes).
• Insight into the effect of PGIP genes on resistance to grey mould.
• Insight into the natural regulation of PGIP genes and their relationship to resistance to grey mould.
• Insight into SNPs of PGIP genes. These SNPs could also be used for marker-assisted breeding without genetic modification.
• Insight into genetic variation of PGIP alleles among cultivars and within cultivars.
• Realisation that it is important to bring the consumers and producers attitudes into focus for these types of important questions that will have a substantial influence on their life and work.
• Insight into the ethical implications of rcductionistic and non-reductionistic approaches to the genetic modification of plants.
• Insight into ethical foundations for precautionary approaches to the political regulation of biotechnology.
• Insights into ethics as an integrated part of technological development compared to ethics as an external assessment of the implications of an existing technology.
• Insight into the integration of popular and expert opinion with foundational ethical analysis in a workable evaluation approach to biotechnological inventions.
• The comparative aspect is important and scientifically interesting.

The beneficiaries for the different partners and society as such are:

• Important for extending the molecular biological techniques for the strawberry breeding.
• Important for the understanding of applied ethics
• The multidisciplinary knowledge and experience gained is important for the scientific community
• The extended knowledge on biotechnology is important for participants in relation to future actions and scientific programs within the field of gene technology.
• Important for consumers since increase in knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of gene technology is valuable in their daily life and work.