AgbioInvestor’s free-to-access service AgbioInvestor GM Monitor has identified the following GM trait approvals up to March 2024.

Expanded details on these recently approved traits, as well as for approvals dating back as far as 1992, can be found on AgbioInvestor’s GM Monitor website.

The banana line QCAV-4, developed by Queensland University of Technology (QUT), has received cultivation and food import approval in Australia, and is the first instance of a GM banana receiving approval.

QCAV-4 is a Cavendish Grand Nain banana was developed through recombinant DNA techniques to express a single banana resistance gene, the RGA2 gene, which allows it to resist the soil-borne fungus (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense) responsible for Panama disease, also known as Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4), which poses a threat to Cavendish bananas globally due to their identical clonal nature. QCAV-4 was created by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation using T-DNA, containing the desired genetic information, to transfer a segment of T-DNA into host cells. Successful genetic transformation was then screened for using the neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII) gene from Escherichia coli as a selectable marker. QCAV-4 is classed as disease resistant, rather than as an output trait. The RGA2 gene came from the wild, south-east Asian banana, Musa acuminata ssp malaccensis and also occurs in Cavendish bananas, but it is dormant.

Panama Disease TR4 has heavily impacted banana production in Asia, has also made its way to South America and instances have been reported in Australia in the Northern Territory and North Queensland. Cavendish bananas, including the QCAV-4, are incapable of sexual reproduction and every plant propagated is an identical clone.

The QCAV-4 banana is the first instance of a GM banana receiving approval for commercial approval for growing both globally, as well as in Australia, and it is also the first whole GM fruit assessed and approved by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) for food use domestically.

The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code will be amended to permit the sale and use of food derived from the banana, should the FSANZ’s approval be ratified by the food ministers of the Australian and New Zealand governments, who have 60 days from 16th February 2024 to consider the approval. The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has approved a licence for the commercial cultivation of banana line QCAV-4 in a separate but parallel regulatory assessment; however, QUT has indicated there are no immediate plans to commercialise the GM banana in Australia as Panama disease is currently contained and effectively managed in the domestic industry.