Sunday Evening News 424 - Week 19 - 2025
Weekly report on genetic engineering, genome editing, biotechnology and legal regulation.
April 2025-05-05 - May 2025-05-11
Meetings – Conferences / Treffen - Veranstaltungen
FAO Global Agrifood Biotechnologies Conference
Biotechnologies for a Sustainable Future: Driving Agrifood Systems Transformation
16 to 18 June 2025 at FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy.
https://www.fao.org/events/detail/fao-biotech-conference-2025/en/
BIH: Neue genomische Techniken in der Pflanzenzüchtung – Chancen und Herausforderungen für Europa
Kaiserin-Friedrich-Haus, Robert-Koch-Platz 7, 10115 Berlin; Hörsaal, 24.06.2025
Press Releases - Media / Presse- und Medienberichte
UK-Parliament: Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 Volume 845: debated on Tuesday 6 May 2025
“The future of plant science in England is bright” – researchers welcome the passing of Precision Breeding legislation
for plants
GM Freeze: To our members and supporters,
https://mailchi.mp/gmfreeze/gentech-regulations-pass-house-of-lords
Bagla P.: World's 1st Rice Variety Using 21st Century "Genome Editing" Produced In India
Cruz G.: “Gene-Edited Pigs Cleared for Dinner”: FDA Greenlights CRISPR Pork for American Tables After Safety Review
Yadav N.:What are gene-edited fruits and vegetables?
Aerni P.: Neue genomische Verfahren in der Pflanzenzüchtung: Nachhaltigkeit braucht Innovation
Qaim M.: Der Wandel in der Landwirtschaft
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/der-wandel-in-der-landwirtschaft-110453159.html
Only some selected press releases or media reports are listed here. The daily up-date of the press releases and
media reports are ►here: May week 19
Publications – Publikationen
Smagghe G., Palli S.R., Swevers L. (ed) (2025): RNA interference in Agriculture: Basic Science to Applications
From Bioinformatics and Laboratory Assays Over Regulatory Issues to Field Uses
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-81549-2
Priyadarshini S. (2025): India approves first genome-edited rice varieties
Using CRISPR-Cas9, scientists have developed high-yield, stress-tolerant, climate-resilient rice varieties free of foreign DNA
https://www.nature.com/articles/d44151-025-00078-2
Folta K.M. (2025): Acceptance of Crop Biotechnology Requires a Change in Communication Strategy. Plant Physiology,
kiaf167, https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiaf167
Ever since the first transgenic plant emerged from a green clump of callus, grant proposals were erected upon grand ideas, visions of crop genetic engineering innovations positively impacting people and the planet. But how many of these actually came to fruition? More than three decades of journal articles articulate the discoveries of gene-trait connections and how they may be implemented to improve profits for farmers, products for consumers, environmental stewardship, and the plight of the food insecure. The shelves and autoclaves of academic, government and industry laboratories speak stories of innovation unrealized. Today’s latest gene editing technologies stand to speed innovation with greater precision with less perception of risk-- but will the next wave of crop solutions created via transgenesis or site-directed nucleases also fail to reach the field? Their deployment is not limited by safety or utility. Instead, they are hindered by a lack of social license to implement technology, driven by understandable concerns, many not based in reality, and some stoked by well-constructed disinformation campaigns. The solution is public engagement, yet scientists engage at low frequency, and fail to connect in effective ways when they do engage. The goal of this article is to illuminate the agricultural biotechnology communication chasm, how it happened, its effects, and implementable solutions. Scientists need to understand the how information flows, the social guardrails that impede information flow, and ways to bypass psychological barriers to deliver trusted information. Rapid deployment of next generation plant biology solutions is dependent on scientists retooling their communication strategies, and then becoming part of the social conversation.
Cassata, F., de Chadarevian, S. (2025): Asilomar Across the Atlantic: EMBO, EMBL, and the Politics of Scientific Expertise.
J Hist Biol | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-025-09808-9
The internationalization of the 1975 International Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA molecules has received little attention, and in particular, the European impact on, and response to, the Asilomar Conference have remained largely unexplored in the historiography to date. This article highlights the role of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) as a key actor in recombinant DNA research and the issuing of guidelines for recombinant DNA technology on both sides of the Atlantic. It also investigates the legacy of the Asilomar Conference in shaping EMBO’s role as a science policy advisor for molecular biology in Europe. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, the article is divided into three sections. The first section explores EMBO’s role as a scientific advisory body in the development and guidance of recombinant DNA research in both the US and Western Europe. The second section investigates the impact of the Asilomar Conference on the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) project, reconstructing the scientific and political rationale behind the early construction of a high-risk containment facility in Heidelberg (soon obsolete due to the international relaxation of the guidelines). The third and final section analyzes how, between 1975 and 2004, EMBO reframed the Asilomar legacy as a model for its aspirations to serve as an advisory group for European science policy in molecular biology.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10739-025-09808-9
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Heritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals. Washington,
DC: The National Academies Press. | https://doi.org/10.17226/27750.
Global demand for animal-derived foods such as meat, eggs, and milk is increasing, even as arable land and water to support animal production are declining worldwide. Among the approaches to meet global demand in a resource-constrained future is the genetic improvement of livestock to increase the efficiency and sustainability of animal agriculture. Food-animal breeders are beginning to leverage advances in the fields of genomics and biotechnology to make targeted changes in DNA, called heritable genetic modifications (HGMs), that can be passed onto subsequent generations, thereby significantly accelerating the process of genetic improvement in populations of food animals.
Berman, A., Su, N., Li, Z. et al. (2025): Construction of multi-targeted CRISPR libraries in tomato to overcome functional
redundancy at genome-scale level. Nat Commun 16, 4111 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59280-6
Genetic variance is vital for breeding programs and mutant screening, yet traditional mutagenesis methods wrestle with genetic redundancy and a lack of specificity in gene targeting. CRISPR-Cas9 offers precise, site-specific gene editing, but its application in crop improvement has been limited by scalability challenges. In this study, we develop genome-wide multi-targeted CRISPR libraries in tomato, enhancing the scalability of CRISPR gene editing in crops and addressing the challenges of redundancy while maintaining its precision. We design 15,804 unique single guide RNAs (sgRNAs), each targeting multiple genes within the same gene families. These sgRNAs are classified into 10 sub-libraries based on gene function. We generate approximately 1300 independent CRISPR lines and successfully identify mutants with distinct phenotypes related to fruit development, fruit flavor, nutrient uptake, and pathogen response. Additionally, we develop CRISPR-GuideMap, a double-barcode tagging system to enable large-scale sgRNA tracking in generated plants. Our results demonstrate that multi-targeted CRISPR libraries are scalable and effective for large-scale gene editing and offer an approach to overcome gene functional redundancy in basic plant research and crop breeding.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59280-6
Jigisha J, Ly J, Minadakis N, Freund F, Kunz L, Piechota U, et al. (2025): Population genomics and molecular epidemiology of
wheat powdery mildew in Europe. PLoS Biol 23(5): e3003097 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003097
Agricultural diseases are a major threat to sustainable food production. Yet, for many pathogens we know exceptionally little about their epidemiological and population dynamics, and this knowledge gap is slowing the development of efficient control strategies. Here we study the population genomics and molecular epidemiology of wheat powdery mildew, a disease caused by the biotrophic fungus Blumeria graminis forma specialis tritici (Bgt). We sampled Bgt across two consecutive years, 2022 and 2023, and compiled a genomic dataset of 415 Bgt isolates from 22 countries in Europe and surrounding regions. We identified a single epidemic unit in the north of Europe, consisting of a highly homogeneous population. Conversely, the south of Europe hosts smaller local populations which are less interconnected. In addition, we show that the population structure can be largely predicted by the prevalent wind patterns. We identified several loci that were under selection in the recent past, including fungicide targets and avirulence genes. Some of these loci are common between populations, while others are not, suggesting different local selective pressures. We reconstructed the evolutionary history of one of these loci, AvrPm17, coding for an effector recognized by the wheat receptor Pm17. We found evidence for a soft sweep on standing genetic variation. Multiple AvrPm17 haplotypes, which can partially escape recognition by Pm17, spread rapidly throughout the continent upon its introduction in the early 2000s. We also identified a new virulent variant, which emerged more recently and can evade Pm17 resistance altogether. Overall, we highlight the potential of genomic surveillance in resolving the evolutionary and epidemiological dynamics of agricultural pathogens, as well as in guiding control strategies.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003097
Gisriel, C.J., Brudvig, G.W. (2025): Investigations into cyanobacterial photoacclimation processes address longstanding
proposals for improving crop yields. Nat Commun 16, 3942 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59419-5
Recent advances in our understanding of cyanobacterial photoacclimation have the potential to improve photosynthetic efficiency in crops. Whereas oxygenic photosynthesis typically relies on visible light, some cyanobacteria acclimate to absorb far-red light, thus expanding the absorbance cross-section of their photosystems. This expanded absorbance range, via the implementation of red-shifted chromophores, could be bioengineered into crops to enhance yields by capturing more light energy and boosting photosynthetic efficiency in light-limited environments. Recent insight into natural cyanobacterial photoacclimation mechanisms offer promising avenues for engineered photosynthetic improvements in agriculture.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59419-5
Franz V., Hör S., Petermeier H.; Neugrodda C., Becker T., Gastl M. (2025): The influence of systematic heat and drought
applications at defined growth stages on malting barley starch properties. J Sci Food Agric. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.14183
BACKGROUND: Starch gelatinization behavior and the proportion of B-granules are crucial for malt quality as a result of their impact on starch degradation during malt-based beverage production. Starch structure and resulting starch properties are determined by the starch synthesis during barley plant growth, which is influenced by barley genetics and environmental growing conditions. Because climate change is altering growing conditions increasingly, insights into the relationship between growth conditions, genetics and relevant starch properties are of upcoming importance. Thus, as a factorial experiment, three malting barley varieties (Morex, Scarlett and Avalon) were grown in highly controlled climate chambers with systematic variations in heat and drought conditions to investigate the influence of (i) pre-anthesis growth temperature [growth stage (GS) < 61]; (ii) temperature from GS 61–75 and from GS 75–93; (iii) malting barley variety; (iv) drought stress; and (v) interactions between those factors on resulting gelatinization behavior (using differential scanning calorimetry) and the B-granule proportion (detected by laser diffraction).
RESULTS: (Stepwise) multiple linear regression calculations (MLR/SMLR) revealed that (i) pre-anthesis growth temperature significantly affected gelatinization behavior (onset, To; endset, TE; enthalpy, ΔH) but not B-granule proportion; (ii) starch properties were not significantly and variety-independently different after heat stress from GS 61–75 or heat stress from GS 75–93; and (iii) additional drought stress did not significantly change To and TE values per se, but significantly affected ΔH and B-granule proportion values.
CONCLUSION: Growth conditions before GS 55 significantly impact starch gelatinization behavior, indicating that starch synthesis is highly affected by conditions before anthesis. © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.14183
Kalvapalle, P.B., Staubus, A., Dysart, M.J. et al. (2025): Information storage across a microbial community using universal
RNA barcoding. Nat Biotechnol | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02593-0
Gene transfer can be studied using genetically encoded reporters or metagenomic sequencing but these methods are limited by sensitivity when used to monitor the mobile DNA host range in microbial communities. To record information about gene transfer across a wastewater microbiome, a synthetic catalytic RNA was used to barcode a highly conserved segment of ribosomal RNA (rRNA). By writing information into rRNA using a ribozyme and reading out native and modified rRNA using amplicon sequencing, we find that microbial community members from 20 taxonomic orders participate in plasmid conjugation with an Escherichia coli donor strain and observe differences in 16S rRNA barcode signal across amplicon sequence variants. Multiplexed rRNA barcoding using plasmids with pBBR1 or ColE1 origins of replication reveals differences in host range. This autonomous RNA-addressable modification provides information about gene transfer without requiring translation and will enable microbiome engineering across diverse ecological settings and studies of environmental controls on gene transfer and cellular uptake of extracellular materials.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-025-02593-0
EFSA
FEZ Panel (2025): Safety evaluation of the food enzyme prolyl oligopeptidase from the genetically modified Trichoderma reesei
strain DP-Nyq99. EFSA Journal, 23(5), e9418. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2025.9418
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2025.9418
FEZ Panel ( (2025): Safety evaluation of the food enzyme acetolactate decarboxylase from the genetically modified Bacillus subtilis
strain DP-Ezz65. EFSA Journal, 23(5), e9419. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2025.9419
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2025.9419