DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFICIENT ELEMENT-SPECIFIC PCR METHOD FOR THE DETECTION OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED RICE, SOY & CORN.

With the ever-increasing number of GM crops introduced to the market, it is required to respect customers' freedom of choice and their perception toward GMOs. According to obligatory demand by food and drug administration for GM testing on raw and processed materials, efficient and robust analytical approaches are needed for screening and identification of GM crops. This article describes the development and applicability of a PCR-based GMO testing of the most frequent constructs used in transgenic soy, corn and rice varieties which include CaMV35S promoter and the NOS terminator and also plant endogenous sequences Lectin, Zein, SPS as internal controls. A total of 2866 different sample inputs collected during the year 2015 to 2017 including GM and non-GM materials have been tested. Results obtained from qualitative PCR test on rice, maize and soybean-containing food samples showed that in total, 1.59% of maize samples and 7.53% of soya samples were GM positive and no GM positive rice sample was detected. The presented method showed high specificity and sensitivity offering an absolute limit of detection of 0.25% GM construct in the samples and sufficient reproducibility of the method was proved. This method fits the purpose of GMO testing laboratories due to its convenience and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]