Summary
The European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL) has reviewed the possibilities and challenges for the detection of food and feed plant products obtained by new directed mutagenesis techniques leading to genome editing.The focus of this report is on products of genome editing that do not contain any inserted recombinantDNA in the final plant.
It concludes that validation of an event-specific detection method and its implementation for market control will only be feasible for genome-edited plant products carrying a known DNA alteration that has been shown to be unique. Under the current circumstances, market control will fail to detect unknown genome-edited plant products.Several issues with regard to the detection, identification and quantification of genome-edited products are currently based on theoretical considerations only and lack any experimental evidence. Therefore,they will require further consideration.