Abstract

RNA interference, or RNAi, refers to a set of biological processes that make use of conserved cellular machinery to silence genes. Although there are several variations in the source and mechanism, they are all triggered by double stranded RNA (dsRNA) which is processed by a protein complex into small, single stranded RNA, referred to as small interfering RNAs (siRNA) with complementarity to sequences in genes targeted for silencing. The use of the RNAi mechanism to develop new traits in plants has fueled a discussion about the environmental safety of the technology for these applications, and this was the subject of a symposium session at the 13th ISBGMO in Cape Town, South Africa. This paper continues that discussion by proposing research areas that may be beneficial for future environmental risk assessments of RNAi-based genetically modified plants, with a particular focus on non-target organism assessment.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-6-2015

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Frontiers in Plant Science, v. 6, article 958, p. 1-9.

© 2015 Roberts, Devos, Lemgo and Zhou.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2015.00958

Funding Information

[T[he drafting and publication of this paper were supported by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute for Food and Agriculture's Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants program (Award Number 2014-33522-22213).

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