CTNBio approves Embrapa soy with genome edited to reduce anti-nutritional factors

Non-transgenic variety has faster commercial release, lower costs and assured biosafety to enter the market

06.09.2022 | 13:56 (UTC -3)
Embrapa
Stage of research carried out in tissue culture for regeneration and selection of plants edited via CRISPR. - Photo: ANeto/Arquivo Embrapa
Stage of research carried out in tissue culture for regeneration and selection of plants edited via CRISPR. - Photo: ANeto/Arquivo Embrapa

The National Biosafety Technical Commission (CTNBio) considered, in an extraordinary meeting on September 1st, that the editing of the soybean genome, conducted by Embrapa with the CRISPR technique, to deactivate some anti-nutritional factors, results in conventional soybeans, therefore, non-transgenic. The opinion given by CTNBio was based on the Normative Resolution n.16 and considered that the edited plant does not contain the presence of DNA from another species, which makes the product non-transgenic.

“This approval from CTNBio is a great achievement, because by considering this soy as non-transgenic, there is no need to carry out the complex process of commercial deregulation of a transgenic product. Thus, commercial release is faster, reducing costs and facilitating the entry of products into the market with biosafety assured”, celebrates Alexandre Nepomuceno, general manager of Embrapa Soja. 

In the Embrapa Soja laboratories, researchers used the precision gene editing technique CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, that is, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) to deactivate the anti-nutritional factor lectin in the DNA of a cultivar of highly productive soybeans. “With this punctual and precise change in soybean DNA, we were able to imitate some processes that exist in nature itself, but which could take a long time to be achieved by other techniques such as, for example, classical breeding”, explains Nepomuceno. 

Some anti-nutritional factors in soy, which is used as a protein component in animal feed and even in human food, hinder the digestibility and absorption of nutrients, especially in monogastric animals, such as pigs and chickens, which have a stomach with reduced storage capacity. “As a result, the use of soy depends on thermal processing, which inactivates these anti-nutritional factors, but which increases the cost of production”, explains one of the research coordinators, researcher Liliane Henning, from Embrapa Soja. “Our expectation with these developed plants is to guarantee the nutritional quality of soybeans, but also potentially enable cost reductions in the use of soybeans for animal feed”, highlights Liliane.

From now on, Embrapa has the possibility of introducing this desired genetic characteristic in its other cultivars adapted to different producing regions. However, the modification made to soybean DNA has already been carried out in a highly productive variety. "If classical breeding had been used, it would have taken 10 to 12 years to have the same characteristic introduced into a productive variety. With the CRISPR technique, this was done in 6 months, and after confirmation of the phenotype (presence of the desired characteristic), the edited variety is ready for registration and commercialization", highlights the researcher.

Legislation and biotechnology

According to Nepomuceno, CTNBio's opinion on the new soy is relevant, because it expands the possibility for public research institutions or even small and medium-sized companies to develop solutions based on biotechnology that can truly become innovations in the market. According to him, Brazil has been following the same understanding that countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Japan, Australia, Chile and Colombia have adopted, that is, more assertive legislation with regard to the use of biotechnology in agriculture, especially in the use of gene editing techniques such as the CRISPR technique.  

Nepomuceno reinforces that gene editing often imitates natural processes or already established processes such as classical genetic improvement. This corroborates the understanding of regulatory agencies, worldwide, that consider organisms with edited genomes to be conventional organisms. “This perception is allowing a democratization of the use of biotechnology in agriculture, enabling the presence of more companies participating and bringing solutions and added value to agribusiness”, he explains. 

new research

The Embrapa Soja team also highlights that editing the soybean genome, through CRISPR technology, has been used at the institution, to generate plants with the deactivation of other anti-nutritional factors (trypsin inhibitors, for example), improving oil quality and also in the activation of native soybean genes involved in increasing drought tolerance. 

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