Genetic Traceability of food products for food safety and quality

This article facilitates deeper insight into label-related consumer information acquisition behaviour. An integrated framework of label information search (LIS) has been developed based on a synthesis of related literature and explorative research conducted by analysing online discussions among customers (netnography). The framework focuses on three main groups of personal factors that serve as antecedents of LIS: general personal factors (e.g. health consciousness and socio-demographics), label-related personal factors (e.g. label-related self-efficacy, trust in labels and the perceived usefulness of labels) and product category-related personal factors (trust in food products, enduring involvement, experience and perceived quality differences). Important  characteristics of the framework are its process-oriented nature and the dynamically
changing relationships among its concepts. LIS is an antecedent to and a consequence of influencing factors. This article offers managerial implications and serves to incite future inquiry in this field.

The growing knowledge in genetics, epigenomics, epitranscriptomics, and the 3D - or even 4D - genome structure provides an increasing number of detection targets that can be used to identify species or genetic lines, whether modified or not. Biotic and abiotic stresses also induce numerous unintentional genetic, epigenetic, and epitranscriptomic modifications. Those changes are transmissible and can be ordered in regions and classified. The detection target is characterised by the mutagenesis technique used. For instance, the detection of transgenic GMO or SDN3 modification of New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) will target their insertion's junction fragments into the genome. Each insertion induces epigenetic, and probably epitranscriptomic, changes which can also be targeted. In addition, one group of markers is linked to the trait(s) introduced or modified by the breeder whose sequence could be used in quantification and "screening". The other target will be a subset of the elements of a matrix approach (as described in the previous chapter). General selection markers, such as those used for plant breeding, together with mutagenesis techniques specific markers, could differentiate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) of any origin. They can be used to quantify and certify, through a global approach to the organism, that the trait modification is artefactual and not "natural." The growing mastery of single-cell sequencing techniques should soon make it possible to differentiate the modifications due, for example, to each step of a Crispr-Cas transformation of cells in culture. This chapter will focus mainly on detection targets based on nucleic acids, DNA, RNA, modified or unmodified, for their routine use in private and enforcement detection laboratories to comply with food labelling and European traceability rules. The chapter use the wording “hidden” GMOs and “new” GMOs as defined by the French NGOs and farmers’ union at the origin of the 2018 European Court of Justice ruling.

The discovery in the 1980s of the pathogenesis’ mechanisms of Agrobacterium tumefaciens led to transgenesis, a technique for increasing the diversity of traits that could be used in plant breeding. Various other means of plant transformation were then implemented. This new technique came when in vitro mutagenesis was stalled due to the lack of mutations’ screening systems until the description in 2000 of the Tilling technique which was then followed by various developments.
Consumers received the genetically modified organisms (GMO) products resulting from these artefactual transformations in different ways in different countries. In European countries with a long culinary tradition and numerous products under official quality labels, the precautionary principle, which had previously prevailed in third countries, was introduced in the face of these new techniques which at the time had lacked any history of safe use. From then on, these GMOs were only produced and marketed after a risk assessment. In addition, labelling and traceability, according to the farm-to-fork approach, are required with specific and general post-market environmental monitoring. This chapter describes the scientific, technical and regulatory framework of this European traceability system, which allows all European consumers to make informed choices about their food. Moreover, this traceability approach enables the coexistence of GM and non-GM supply chains and should thus make it possible to avoid mixing food products with those for pharmaceutical, functional food or industrial use.
The framework we describe in this chapter must be used to deal with the traceability of "new" GMOs and "hidden" GMOs. GMOs resulting from in vitro mutagenesis of isolated cells and NBT techniques, so named by the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and farmers' union that brought the dispute before the French Conseil d’Etat in 2015 engendered a conflict that led to the European Court of Justice recalling the 2001/18 directive’s definition of GMOs in 2018. The feasibility of this traceability of these "hidden" and "new" GMOs is discussed in the next chapter.

The growing knowledge in genetics, epigenomics, epitranscriptomics, and the 3D - or even 4D - genome structure provides an increasing number of detection targets that can be used to identify species or genetic lines, whether modified or not. Biotic and abiotic stresses also induce numerous unintentional genetic, epigenetic, and epitranscriptomic modifications. Those changes are transmissible and can be ordered in regions and classified. The detection target is characterised by the mutagenesis technique used. For instance, the detection of transgenic GMO or SDN3 modification of New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) will target their insertion's junction fragments into the genome. Each insertion induces epigenetic, and probably epitranscriptomic, changes which can also be targeted. In addition, one group of markers is linked to the trait(s) introduced or modified by the breeder whose sequence could be used in quantification and "screening". The other target will be a subset of the elements of a matrix approach (as described in the previous chapter). General selection markers, such as those used for plant breeding, together with mutagenesis techniques specific markers, could differentiate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) of any origin. They can be used to quantify and certify, through a global approach to the organism, that the trait modification is artefactual and not "natural." The growing mastery of single-cell sequencing techniques should soon make it possible to differentiate the modifications due, for example, to each step of a Crispr-Cas transformation of cells in culture. This chapter will focus mainly on detection targets based on nucleic acids, DNA, RNA, modified or unmodified, for their routine use in private and enforcement detection laboratories to comply with food labelling and European traceability rules. The chapter use the wording “hidden” GMOs and “new” GMOs as defined by the French NGOs and farmers’ union at the origin of the 2018 European Court of Justice ruling.

GMO coexistence and traceability are tools used to manage the GMO controversy, which is itself part of a broader demand within society for the participatory management of technological innovations. This means that scientists are being asked to acknowledge that science and expertise are social constructs. Scientists and politicians should take this demand for participatory democracy into greater account as of the risk assessment phase, by a means which remains to be defined.

The application of molecular genetics to the identification of fishes is an appropriate technology for quality control and commercial tracking. We have applied a DNA-based methodology to identify the exact species of Argentinean hake included in commercial products. The first test consisted in the PCR amplification of a 122 bp fragment from the cytochrome bgene to assess the presence of