Genetically modified organisms: adapting regulatory frameworks for evolving genome editing technologies

Genetic modification of living organisms has been a prosperous activity for research and development of agricultural, industrial and biomedical applications. Three decades have passed since the first genetically modified products, obtained by transgenesis, become available to the market. The regulatory frameworks across the world have not been able to keep up to date with new technologies, monitoring and safety concerns. New genome editing techniques are opening new avenues to genetic modification development and uses, putting pressure on these frameworks. Here we discuss the implications of definitions of living/genetically modified organisms, the evolving genome editing tools to obtain them and how the regulatory frameworks around the world have taken these technologies into account, with a focus on agricultural crops. Finally, we expand this review beyond commercial crops to address living modified organism uses in food industry, biomedical applications and climate change-oriented solutions.

Disentangling the genetic bases of Saccharomyces cerevisiae nitrogen consumption and adaptation to low nitrogen environments in wine fermentation

The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been considered for more than 20 years as a premier model organ- ism for biological sciences, also being the main microorganism used in wide industrial applications, like alcoholic fermentation in the winemaking process. Grape juice is a challenging environment for S. cerevisiae , with nitrogen deficiencies impairing fermentation rate and yeast biomass production, causing stuck or sluggish fermentations, thus generating sizeable economic losses for wine industry. In the present review, we summarize some recent efforts in the search of causative genes that account for yeast adaptation to low nitrogen environments, specially focused in wine fermentation conditions. We start presenting a brief perspective of yeast nitrogen utilization under wine fermentative conditions, highlighting yeast preference for some nitrogen sources above others. Then, we give an outlook of S. cerevisiae genetic diversity studies, paying special attention to efforts in genome sequencing for population structure determination and presenting QTL mapping as a powerful tool for phenotype-genotype correlations. Finally, we do a recapitulation of S. cerevisiae natural diversity related to low nitrogen adaptation, specially showing how different studies have left in evidence the central role of the TORC1 signalling pathway in nitrogen utilization and positioned wild S. cerevisiae strains as a reservoir of beneficial alleles with potential industrial applications (e.g. improvement of industrial yeasts for wine production). More studies focused in disentangling the genetic bases of S. cerevisiae adaptation in wine fermentation will be key to determine the domestication effects over low nitrogen adaptation, as well as to definitely proof that wild S. cerevisiae strains have potential genetic determinants for better adaptation to low nitrogen conditions.