AgbioInvestor’s free-to access service AgbioInvestor GM Monitor has identified the following GM trait approvals up to May 2023. 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.

Beijing Dabeinong Biotechnology’s DBN8002 Soybean, which utilises the genetic event DBN8002 (DBN8ØØ2) has received Chinese cultivation approval, making it the second soybean developed globally that contains Vip genes, both have been granted approval for cultivation in China.

DBN8002 was likely created through agrobacterium-mediated transformation, through which a segment of T-DNA, containing the desired genetic information, is transferred into host cells. Successful genetic transformation is then screened for, often through the use of marker genes to demonstrate the proper insertion of the DNA transcript.

DBN8002 utilises two genes to provide herbicide tolerance and insect resistance; the pat gene, which is present to confer glufosinate tolerance, whilst the Vip3Aa gene provides lepidopteran insect resistance. The pat gene comes from Streptomyces viridochromogenes and encodes a phosphinothricin N-acetyltransferase (PAT) protein which inactivates glufosinate herbicides, before they accumulate to toxic levels within the plant, providing herbicide tolerance. Vegetative insecticidal proteins (Vip) are produced during the vegetative growth stage of Bacillus thuringiensis. Similar to Cry proteins, the Vip3A proteins undergo activation in the insect’s midgut, resulting in cell lysis and eventual death of the insect.

Vip proteins were first developed by Syngenta and first expressed as a single insecticidal protein. Vip3A was approved for cultivation in the USA and Australia in 2005 in cotton through Vipcot (COT102), and later Vip3Aa become available in maize in the USA in through Agrisure Viptera (MIR162). Until 2022, when INDEAR received cultivation approval for a GM soybean containing Vip3Aa and pat (DBN8002), Vip genes were only used in cotton and maize.

As of the time of publication, only two GM soybean varieties containing a Vip protein have been approved, DBN8002 and CAL16. CAL16, which contains vip3Da and cry1Ab, has received cultivation approval in China whilst DBN8002 has received cultivation approval in both Argentina and in China. GM soybean containing Vip genes have not yet received approval for food or feed use.