Research Progress of the Functional Nucleic Acid Techniques in GMO Detection - Research Progress of the Functional Nucleic Acid Techniques in GMO Detection - Open Access Pub

Functional nucleic acids are a kind of nucleic acid sequences with special functions, which can specifically bind with the target substances or catalyze the reactions. Many target, including mycotoxins, small RNA, heavy metal ions and DNA segment, can bind to particular selected oligonucleotides, and then realized the detection. The uses of functional nucleic acids to detect the genetically modified organism (GMO) have been pursued using different approaches. Meanwhile, the flanking sequence, which was the most specific target in the GMO detection, was also usually separated with the help of functional nucleic acid. During the detection, the functional nucleic acid provided superior sensitivity, specificity and success rate compared with the traditional methods. In this report, we described different functional nucleic acids used in the GMO detection, they were classified based on their structures, and some of them were developed in our lab. The principle, structural composition, advantage, and the comparisons of the functional nucleic acids were reported. Considering most of the functional nucleic acids are fluorescently-labeled, in order to reduce the cost, more and more functional nucleic acids without labeling are under research. DOI10.14302/issn.2575-7881.jdrr-17-1701 An increasing number of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), especially the GM crops, which are widely cultivated as sources of food and feed in many countries, have been developed using recombinant DNA technology 1. Although the transgenic technology has been developed for many years, however, several controversial issues are being discussed in the whole world, including food safety, environmental risk, and ethical concerns 2. Consequently, in order to protect consumers’ freedom of choice, more than 40 countries have established series of laws and rules for GMO labeling. For instance, the threshold for labeling of GM material in a non-GM background is defined as 0.9% in the European Union, 3% in Korea, 5% in Japan, and zero in China 3. Just because the different requirements among the countries, the quantitative detection and identification of the GMO are very important. The methods, which are based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, are widely used in the detection of GMOs 4, 5. As the increasing of the GM crops, the government request becomes much stricter, and the detection techniques are increasing correspondingly. Nucleic acids are always used as functional detection medium in the detection. Some small molecules, such as mycotoxins, small RNA, heavy metal