Journal or Publishing Institution: Environmental Biosafety Research
Author(s): Teycheney, P.Y. and Tepfer, M.
Article Type: Journal Publication
Record ID: 1974
Text: One of the communication tools of the EC-funded Biosafenet project is a series of six Biosafenet Seminars
that will be held 2007–2009. Their purpose is to convene small groups of scientists to consider emerging issues related to the potential impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The first Seminar was organized
by the ICGEB at the MasterCampus of the Fondazione Cassamarca in Ca’ Tron di Roncade (Italy) on 6th–8th June 2007, and focused on the potential impact of both naturally occurring and transgenic viral sequences in plant genomes. Viral sequences have been introduced into plant genomes to create virus resistant transgenic plants
(VRTPs) since the mid-1980s. More recently, it has been shown that fragments of certain viral genomes have been naturally inserted into plant genomes and maintained through evolution (Harper et al., 2002; Hull et al., 2000). The current research on what can be considered to be natural analogs of viral transgenes is focused primarily on sequences derived from dsDNA viruses, the pararetroviruses of the family Caulimoviridae. The endogenous pararetroviral sequences (EPRVs) that have been described so far are often highly degenerate, but in some cases can be activated to produce infectious virus, and thus disease (Staginnus and Richert-Pöggeler, 2006). For ssDNA viruses, represented by the family of Geminiviridae, only fragments of homologous sequences have been reported in the genome of Nicotiana spp (Murad et al., 2004). The expression and regulation of VRTPs and EPRVs involve similar transcriptional and post-transcriptional pathways (see Fig. 1). Moreover, both VRTPs and EPRVs have the potential to contribute to the emergence of new virus populations. Therefore, questions about both types of inserted viral sequences arise: do both confer resistance by similar mechanisms in certain cases? Could both types of inserted sequences contribute to the emergence of new viral genomes? In order to help answer these questions…
Keywords: Genetically Modified Organisms, Biosafenet, Viral Sequences, Plant Genomes, Transgenic Plants, Virus Resistant Transgenic Plants, Plant Genomes, Viral Transgene
Citation: Teycheney, P.Y. and Tepfer, M., 2007. Possible roles of endogenous plant viral sequences and transgenes containing viral sequences in both virus resistance and virus emergence. Environmental Biosafety Research, 6(4), pp.219-221.
