Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

Appendix One: What is a GMO
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“Modern biotechnology” means the application of:
a. In vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and
direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles…
– transformation of an organism by any in vitro modified RNA would constitute the creation
of a GMO because RNA is a nucleic acid. The Protocol does not make a distinction
between chemical and gene, nor does it invite one to be made.
A distinction between genetic material and chemicals is the ability of the former
material to contribute to its own amplification. Amplification is often taken as an indicator
of a material’s ability to carry traits across generations or through infectious transfer (e.g.,
such as a virus). In contrast, chemicals do not participate directly as co-factors in an
amplification pathway. While both RNA and some antibiotics (e.g., rifampicin) can change
patterns of gene expression, the former is not equivalent to the latter in classification as a
chemical because it can be amplified by “can be copied” as well as “copies itself” pathways.
RNA can be amplified in the sense of “can be copied” through biochemical pathways that
organize around the existence of a particular dsRNA molecule and produce new equivalent
dsRNA molecules not by polymerization but by degradation of other RNA molecules in
the same cell. RNA can cause the transfer of characters and traits in the sense of “copies
itself” through dsRNA-mediated de novo methylation of DNA and histones; that
methylation is perpetuated by still other biochemical pathways.
Gene silencing is a trait that can amplify but not by the same biochemical pathways
as DNA. Evidence of this amplification is:
[Infectious transfer:] The small amounts of dsRNA required for gene silencing and larval
mortality suggest an amplification pathway in which ingested dsRNAs are processed to
siRNAs, presumably within insect gut epithelial cells, which may prime the synthesis of
more abundant secondary siRNAs…Northern blot analysis of total RNA from whole WCR
larvae revealed almost complete suppression of targeted transcripts from several housekeeping
genes, suggesting systemic spread of silencing beyond gut epithelial cells, the presumed
initiation site of the RNAi response (Baum et al., 2007, p. 1323).
One of the most intriguing aspects of RNA silencing is that it is non-cell-autonomous: in
both plants and Caenorhabditis elegans it can be induced locally and then spread to distant
sites throughout the organism. The systemic spread of silencing reflects the existence of an
as yet unidentified mobile silencing signal as an integral component of the RNA silencing
pathway…In grafting experiments, systemic silencing was transmitted across a graft junction
from spontaneously silenced transgenic tobacco rootstocks to isogenic scions that had not
silenced spontaneously (Mlotshwa et al., 2002, pp. S289-S290).
The transmission of PTGS also occurred when silenced stocks and non-silenced target scions
were physically separated by up to 30 cm of stem of a non-target wild-type plant, indicating
long-distance propagation (Vaucheret et al., 2001, p. 3084).