Site-Directed Mutagenesis: Outstanding Innovations Coming From Afar And Awaiting Global Regulatory Framework

Noreddine Benkerroum

McGill University, Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry, MacDonald Campus, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9, (CANADA)

PAGE NO: 161-189

ABSTRACT – DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47204/EBR.1.2.2021.161-189

Genome editing technology encompasses a suite of state-of-the-art methods among a diversity of “New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) that has recently emerged as an outcome of the steady evolution of basic and applied sciences since the Mendelian laws in the late 19th century. These techniques enable genetic modifications of living organisms by targeting a specific site in the host DNA in precise manner generating various mutations (point mutations, indels, deletions, and insertions) without necessarily leaving a foreign DNA fragment in the resulting mutants. Also, in most cases, the genome edited mutants are identical to their parents or to mutants obtained with the conventional mutagenesis by irradiation or chemical mutagens. These criteria are often used as the main arguments to advocate that such genome modified products differ from the conventional Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and that they should not fall under the same biosafety regulatory framework. Genome editing techniques, especially those of site-directed mutagenesis (SDM), are showing great promises for revolutionary applications in various fields, including agriculture, biomedicine, and biopharmaceuticals. Nonetheless, for these promises to come true, an adequate regulatory framework of global scope and satisfactory to researchers, consumers, stockholders, producers, and other interested parties remains to be clearly and soundly defined. This review aimed to discuss the recent advances in the main SDM techniques, their achievements, and the present regulatory status in different countries around the world.