Investigation on transgenic rice status in Shiraz consumer market using PCR

Increasing the world population and subsequently increasing demand for food has led to the use of new biotechnology methods to produce food. Transgenic plants are one of the major biotechnological achievements in agriculture that have gained part of the world food market in recent years and the cultivation area of these plants is constantly increasing. Human needs to increase agricultural production and food security, the use of biotechnology has made it inevitable and on the other hand, the potential dangers of producing these products have raised concerns for human health and consumer rights. One of the concerns expressed by people is transferring unknown genes to plants from other countries and importing these products into the country without using GMO label, that these products may have an impact on human health and other living organisms. Therefore, first step is identifying and labeling transgenic products. In this study, 30 samples of domestic and foreign rice were randomly purchased from Shiraz market. DNA was extracted using the standard CTAB method and the polymerase chain reaction for SPS gene was performed to prove the presence of rice genome. The PCR for EPSPS gene, 35S promoter and NOS terminator were performed to identify transgenic rice. The results of PCR using specific primers showed that none of the rice samples purchased from Shiraz market were transgenic.