Report: Release of the International Life Sciences Institute Crop Composition Database Version 5

Equivalence Testing Approaches in Genetically Modified Organism Risk Assessment

Since 2011, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has implemented combined difference and equivalence testing of agronomic, phenotypic, and composition data in the risk assessment of genetically modified crops. A short perspective is provided on misunderstandings that have shown up in published criticisms of the approach to equivalence testing, different viewpoints regarding the questions to be answered, and new developments in statistical modeling.

EFSA Genetically Engineered Crop Composition Equivalence Approach: Performance and Consistency

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) oversees the safety assessment of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the European Union and has developed a study design and statistical approach for assessing the compositional equivalency between a GE crop and the corresponding non-GE crop on the basis of the results from a small number of concurrently grown reference lines. Confidence limits around the differences in mean analyte composition between the GE variety and the reference lines are compared with equivalence limits on the basis of the variability of the reference lines. Here, we evaluated the performance and consistency of the equivalence conclusions using a non-GE variety that is, by definition, equivalent to the non-GE crop. Using this approach across the same analytes with the same non-GE variety, it was found that equivalence could not be concluded for 19.7, 22.9, 25.4, and 53.5% of the analytes in four separate studies. In addition, equivalency conclusions for the same analyte often differed from study to study. These results call into question the consistency and value of this approach in the risk assessment of GE crops.

Stacked Genetically Engineered Trait Products Produced by Conventional Breeding Reflect the Compositional Profiles of Their Component Single Trait Products

An expanding trend for genetically engineered (GE) crops is to cultivate varieties in which two or more single trait products have been combined using conventional breeding to produce a stacked trait product that provides a useful grouping of traits. Here, we report results from compositional analysis of several GE stacked trait products from maize and soybean. The results demonstrate that these products are each compositionally equivalent to a relevant non-GE comparator variety, except for predictable shifts in the fatty acid profile in the case of stacked trait products that contain a trait, MON 87705, that confers a high-oleic-acid phenotype in soybean. In each case, the conclusion on compositional equivalence for the stacked trait product reflects the conclusions obtained for the single trait products. These results provide strong support for conducting a reassessment of those regulatory guidelines that mandate explicit characterization of stacked trait products produced through conventional breeding.