Genetically Modified Crops can be Detected with One Simple, Comprehensive Test

A team of Chinese scientists has developed a simple and comprehensive method to determine whether a crop has been genetically modified.

The research comes at a time when many consumers are unable to avoid consuming genetically modified (GM) foods - particularity corn and soy - and when regulation on labeling biotech foods as GM has yet to come to fruition.

As time passes and more GM crops are brought to market, the demand for accurate labeling will only increase, the researchers contend.

The US government has not declared there to be any dangers that could arise from GM foods, but many consumers are wary GM foods, especially in Europe, where the regulations on GM food is the most stringent in the world. Only 48 GM crops are allowed in the European Union.

This month General Mills, the maker of the popular breakfast cereal Cheerios, said they were changing the ingredients of their flagship product to make it free of GM foods, a move the company said it did because it felt its customers wanted it.

But by the end of 2012, farmers were growing GM crops in 28 countries on more than 420 million acres of land, an increase in excess of 100 percent in just over two decades, according to the American Chemical Society.

And despite public wariness, GM crops are likely to continue to proliferate, which is why researchers Li-Tao Yang, Sheng-Ce Tao and their colleagues suggest that a single, comprehensive scan to detect whether a crop is GM will be more necessary than ever in the future.

The researchers developed a method they call "multiplex amplification on a chip with readout on an oligo microarray," or, more simply, MACRO.

The MACRO system is a combination of two well-known genetic testing methods that detect GM foods by flagging specific genes. The research team says MACRO can detect about 97 percent of known commercial GM crops, which is more than twice the effectiveness of other existing tests. MACRO can also be expanded to include additional GM crops created in the future and is ready for real-world applications, the researches said.

"We believe MACRO is the first system that can be applied for effectively monitoring the majority of the commercialized GMOs in a single test," the researchers said in the abstract to their research, which is published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.