Qualitative and quantitative PCR detection of insect-resistant genetically modified rice Agb0101 developed in korea

Genetically modified (GM) rice Agb0101, which expresses the insecticidal toxin modified cry1Ac (mcry1Ac1) gene, was developed by the Rural Development Administration in Korea. To monitor the probable release of Agb0101 in the future, it is necessary to develop a reliable detection method. Here, we developed the PCR detection method for monitoring and tracing of GM rice. The primer pair (RBEgh- 1/-2) from a starch branching enzyme (RBE4) gene was designed as an endogenous reference, giving rise to an expected PCR amplicon of 101 bp. For the qualitative PCR detection, construct- and event-specific primers were designed on the basis of integration sequence of T-DNA. Eventspecific PCRs amplified specifically 5- or 3-junction region spanning the native genome DNA and the integrated gene construct, while none of amplified product was shown on crops, rice varieties, and other insect-resistant transgenic rice lines. The event-specific real-time PCR method was performed using TaqMan probe and plasmid pRBECrR containing both rice endogenous gene RBE4 sequence and 5-junction sequence as the reference molecule. The absolute limit of quantification (LOQ) of real-time PCR was established with around 10 copies for one plasmid molecule pRBECrR. Thereafter, the different amounts of transgenic rice (1, 3, 5, and 10%, respectively) were quantified by using the established real-time PCR method, with a range below 19.55% of the accuracy expressed as bias, 0.06-0.40 of standard deviation (SD) and 3.80-7.01% of relative standard deviations (RSD), respectively. These results indicate that the qualitative and quantitative PCR methods could be used effectively to detect the event Agb0101 in monitoring and traceability.