Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges

Plant viruses cause yield losses to crops of agronomic and economic significance and are a challenge to the achievement of global food security. Although conventional plant breeding has played an important role in managing plant viral diseases, it will unlikely meet the challenges posed by the frequ...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Prakash M. Niraula, Vincent N. Fondong
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	genetically engineered (GE) genetically engineered organism (GMO) regulation of GMOs virus-resistant transgenic crops Botany QK1-989
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/50c0021bab494e229b15111ffda5eedb
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:50c0021bab494e229b15111ffda5eedb
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:50c0021bab494e229b15111ffda5eedb2021-11-25T18:45:32ZDevelopment and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges10.3390/plants101123392223-7747https://doaj.org/article/50c0021bab494e229b15111ffda5eedb2021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/11/2339https://doaj.org/toc/2223-7747Plant viruses cause yield losses to crops of agronomic and economic significance and are a challenge to the achievement of global food security. Although conventional plant breeding has played an important role in managing plant viral diseases, it will unlikely meet the challenges posed by the frequent emergence of novel and more virulent viral species or viral strains. Hence there is an urgent need to seek alternative strategies of virus control that can be more readily deployed to contain viral diseases. The discovery in the late 1980s that viral genes can be introduced into plants to engineer resistance to the cognate virus provided a new avenue for virus disease control. Subsequent advances in genomics and biotechnology have led to the refinement and expansion of genetic engineering (GE) strategies in crop improvement. Importantly, many of the drawbacks of conventional breeding, such as long lead times, inability or difficulty to cross fertilize, loss of desirable plant traits, are overcome by GE. Unfortunately, public skepticism towards genetically modified (GM) crops and other factors have dampened the early promise of GE efforts. These concerns are principally about the possible negative effects of transgenes to humans and animals, as well as to the environment. However, with regards to engineering for virus resistance, these risks are overstated given that most virus resistance engineering strategies involve transfer of viral genes or genomic segments to plants. These viral genomes are found in infected plant cells and have not been associated with any adverse effects in humans or animals. Thus, integrating antiviral genes of virus origin into plant genomes is hardly unnatural as suggested by GM crop skeptics. Moreover, advances in deep sequencing have resulted in the sequencing of large numbers of plant genomes and the revelation of widespread endogenization of viral genomes into plant genomes. This has raised the possibility that viral genome endogenization is part of an antiviral defense mechanism deployed by the plant during its evolutionary past. Thus, GM crops engineered for viral resistance would likely be acceptable to the public if regulatory policies were product-based (the North America regulatory model), as opposed to process-based. This review discusses some of the benefits to be gained from adopting GE for virus resistance, as well as the challenges that must be overcome to leverage this technology. Furthermore, regulatory policies impacting virus-resistant GM crops and some success cases of virus-resistant GM crops approved so far for cultivation are discussed.Prakash M. NiraulaVincent N. FondongMDPI AGarticlegenetically engineered (GE)genetically engineered organism (GMO)regulation of GMOsvirus-resistant transgenic cropsBotanyQK1-989ENPlants, Vol 10, Iss 2339, p 2339 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	genetically engineered (GE) genetically engineered organism (GMO) regulation of GMOs virus-resistant transgenic crops Botany QK1-989
spellingShingle	genetically engineered (GE) genetically engineered organism (GMO) regulation of GMOs virus-resistant transgenic crops Botany QK1-989 Prakash M. Niraula Vincent N. Fondong Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
description	Plant viruses cause yield losses to crops of agronomic and economic significance and are a challenge to the achievement of global food security. Although conventional plant breeding has played an important role in managing plant viral diseases, it will unlikely meet the challenges posed by the frequent emergence of novel and more virulent viral species or viral strains. Hence there is an urgent need to seek alternative strategies of virus control that can be more readily deployed to contain viral diseases. The discovery in the late 1980s that viral genes can be introduced into plants to engineer resistance to the cognate virus provided a new avenue for virus disease control. Subsequent advances in genomics and biotechnology have led to the refinement and expansion of genetic engineering (GE) strategies in crop improvement. Importantly, many of the drawbacks of conventional breeding, such as long lead times, inability or difficulty to cross fertilize, loss of desirable plant traits, are overcome by GE. Unfortunately, public skepticism towards genetically modified (GM) crops and other factors have dampened the early promise of GE efforts. These concerns are principally about the possible negative effects of transgenes to humans and animals, as well as to the environment. However, with regards to engineering for virus resistance, these risks are overstated given that most virus resistance engineering strategies involve transfer of viral genes or genomic segments to plants. These viral genomes are found in infected plant cells and have not been associated with any adverse effects in humans or animals. Thus, integrating antiviral genes of virus origin into plant genomes is hardly unnatural as suggested by GM crop skeptics. Moreover, advances in deep sequencing have resulted in the sequencing of large numbers of plant genomes and the revelation of widespread endogenization of viral genomes into plant genomes. This has raised the possibility that viral genome endogenization is part of an antiviral defense mechanism deployed by the plant during its evolutionary past. Thus, GM crops engineered for viral resistance would likely be acceptable to the public if regulatory policies were product-based (the North America regulatory model), as opposed to process-based. This review discusses some of the benefits to be gained from adopting GE for virus resistance, as well as the challenges that must be overcome to leverage this technology. Furthermore, regulatory policies impacting virus-resistant GM crops and some success cases of virus-resistant GM crops approved so far for cultivation are discussed.
format	article
author	Prakash M. Niraula Vincent N. Fondong
author_facet	Prakash M. Niraula Vincent N. Fondong
author_sort	Prakash M. Niraula
title	Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
title_short	Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
title_full	Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
title_fullStr	Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
title_full_unstemmed	Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges
title_sort	development and adoption of genetically engineered plants for virus resistance: advances, opportunities and challenges
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/50c0021bab494e229b15111ffda5eedb
work_keys_str_mv	AT prakashmniraula developmentandadoptionofgeneticallyengineeredplantsforvirusresistanceadvancesopportunitiesandchallenges AT vincentnfondong developmentandadoptionofgeneticallyengineeredplantsforvirusresistanceadvancesopportunitiesandchallenges
_version_	1718410710598287360

Development and Adoption of Genetically Engineered Plants for Virus Resistance: Advances, Opportunities and Challenges

Ejemplares similares