Gene edited CRISPR mushroom escapes US regulation
T he US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will not regulate a mushroom that has been genetically modified with the gene editing tool CRISPR Cas9, the agency has confirmed. The long awaited decision means that the mushroom can be cultivated and sold without passing through the agency's regulatory process making it the first CRISPR edited organism to receive a green light from the US government. " The research community will be very happy with the news, " says Caixia Gao, a plant biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology in Beijing, who was not involved in developing the mushroom. " I am confident we'll see more gene edited crops falling outside of regulatory authority. " Yinong Yang, a plant pathologist at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in University Park, engineered the fungus the common white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) to resist browning. The effect is achieved by targeting the family of genes that encodes polyphenol oxidase (PPO) an enzyme that causes browning. By deleting just a handful of base pairs in the mushroom's genome, Yang knocked out one of six PPO genes reducing the enzyme's activity by 30% The mushroom is one of about 30 genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to sidestep the USDA's regulatory system in the past 5 years. In each case, the agency's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has said that the organisms mostly plants do not qualify as something that the agency must regulate. (Once a crop passes the USDA reviews, it may still undergo a voluntary review by the US Food and Drug Administration. Several of the plants that bypassed the USDA were made using gene editing techniques such as the zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) and transcription activator like effector nuclease (TALEN) systems. But until now, it was not clear whether the USDA would give the same pass to organisms engineered with science's hottest tool, CRISPR Cas9. Yang first presented the crop to a small group of USDA regulators in October 2015, after being encouraged to do so by an APHIS official. " They were very excited, " Yang says: " There was certainly interest and a positive feeling " at the meetings. He followed up with an official letter of enquiry to the agency later that month. The USDA's answer came this week. " APHIS does not consider CRISPR/Cas9 edited white button mushrooms as described in your Octo ber 30, 2015 letter to
Nature