In accordance with the amendments to the Federal Law on Consumer Protection which came into force in December 2007, the manufacturer is to label food products that contain components obtained by methods of genetic engineering. If the GMO content in the product does not exceed 0.9%, this is considered as technical impurity and therefore, the product is not subject to labelling.
The need for GMO quantitation is justified by frequent cases of composition falsification and the use of cheaper raw materials by manufacturers of food products and feeds.
There is a basic approach to GMO quantitation in a test sample. It is based on simultaneous analysis of test samples and reference standards with subsequent use of their results to plot a calibration curve. The selection of the analysis target is responsible for insignificant but essential differences in this method. In this case, a separate test of each GM line instead of one common target such as 35S CamV or tNOS is the most informative.
NextBio Ltd. has developed a number of kits for the identification and quantitation of GM lines of soybean, corn and rapeseed. These kits determine the percentage of DNA of genetically modified plant lines from the total DNA of soybean, corn or rapeseed (depending on the kit) in plant-based raw material, food products and feeds containing plant-derived components, in semi-cooked foods, raw materials and feeds of animal origin.
