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New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation

Gene flow of transgenes into non-target populations is an important biosafety concern. The case of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico has been of particular interest because of the country’s status as center of origin and landrace diversity. In contrast to maize in the U.S. and Europe, Mexica...

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Autores principales: van Heerwaarden, Joost, Ortega Del Vecchyo, Diego, Alvarez-Buylla, Elena R., Bellon, Mauricio R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463572/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23056246
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046123
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author van Heerwaarden, Joost
Ortega Del Vecchyo, Diego
Alvarez-Buylla, Elena R.
Bellon, Mauricio R.
author_facet van Heerwaarden, Joost
Ortega Del Vecchyo, Diego
Alvarez-Buylla, Elena R.
Bellon, Mauricio R.
author_sort van Heerwaarden, Joost
collection PubMed
description Gene flow of transgenes into non-target populations is an important biosafety concern. The case of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico has been of particular interest because of the country’s status as center of origin and landrace diversity. In contrast to maize in the U.S. and Europe, Mexican landraces form part of an evolving metapopulation in which new genes are subject to evolutionary processes of drift, gene flow and selection. Although these processes are affected by seed management and particularly seed flow, there has been little study into the population genetics of transgenes under traditional seed management. Here, we combine recently compiled data on seed management practices with a spatially explicit population genetic model to evaluate the importance of seed flow as a determinant of the long-term fate of transgenes in traditional seed systems. Seed flow between farmers leads to a much wider diffusion of transgenes than expected by pollen movement alone, but a predominance of seed replacement over seed mixing lowers the probability of detection due to a relative lack of homogenization in spatial frequencies. We find that in spite of the spatial complexities of the modeled system, persistence probabilities under positive selection are estimated quite well by existing theory. Our results have important implications concerning the feasibility of long term transgene monitoring and control in traditional seed systems.
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spelling pubmed-34635722012-10-09 New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation van Heerwaarden, Joost Ortega Del Vecchyo, Diego Alvarez-Buylla, Elena R. Bellon, Mauricio R. PLoS One Research Article Gene flow of transgenes into non-target populations is an important biosafety concern. The case of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico has been of particular interest because of the country’s status as center of origin and landrace diversity. In contrast to maize in the U.S. and Europe, Mexican landraces form part of an evolving metapopulation in which new genes are subject to evolutionary processes of drift, gene flow and selection. Although these processes are affected by seed management and particularly seed flow, there has been little study into the population genetics of transgenes under traditional seed management. Here, we combine recently compiled data on seed management practices with a spatially explicit population genetic model to evaluate the importance of seed flow as a determinant of the long-term fate of transgenes in traditional seed systems. Seed flow between farmers leads to a much wider diffusion of transgenes than expected by pollen movement alone, but a predominance of seed replacement over seed mixing lowers the probability of detection due to a relative lack of homogenization in spatial frequencies. We find that in spite of the spatial complexities of the modeled system, persistence probabilities under positive selection are estimated quite well by existing theory. Our results have important implications concerning the feasibility of long term transgene monitoring and control in traditional seed systems. Public Library of Science 2012-10-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3463572/ /pubmed/23056246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046123 Text en © 2012 van Heerwaarden et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
van Heerwaarden, Joost
Ortega Del Vecchyo, Diego
Alvarez-Buylla, Elena R.
Bellon, Mauricio R.
New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title_full New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title_fullStr New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title_full_unstemmed New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title_short New Genes in Traditional Seed Systems: Diffusion, Detectability and Persistence of Transgenes in a Maize Metapopulation
title_sort new genes in traditional seed systems: diffusion, detectability and persistence of transgenes in a maize metapopulation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463572/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23056246
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046123
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