Biosensors as 21st Century Technology for Detecting Genetically Modified Organisms in Food and Feed

摘要

The history of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be traced to the year 1971, when Ananda M. Chakrabarthy discovered a multiplasmid hydrocarbon degrading bacteria Pseudomonas putida that was capable of digesting an oil spill 2 orders of magnitude faster than four similar strains. Since then, little more than 2 decades, this landmark research paved the way for a "biotech revolution" that allowed genetic transformation of virtually all terrains of life on earth. Mainly in the agricultural sector, in the years between 1997 and 1999 as much as 70-80 million acres were quickly converted to raise genetically modified (GM) food and crops. Predominantly, >40% of the corn, >50% of the cotton, and >45% of soybean acres of land and at least 2/3rds of all the U.S. processed foods contained GMOs. What caused this dramatic revolution lies in the fact that GMOs are unique, and they were mankind-created by forceful modification of their genome through gene technology. Genetic transformation/modification occurs by alteration of an organism gene cassette (Figure 1) consisting of an expression promoter (P), a structural gene ("encoding region"), and an expression terminator (T), by inserting foreign DNA, which enables the expression of an additional protein conferring new characteristics, for example, herbicide tolerance, resistance to virus, antibiotic, and insect resistance.