Transgenes monitoring in an industrial soybean processing chain by DNA-based conventional approaches and biosensors

The development of analytical methods for genetically modified organisms (GMO) screening is of great interest. In particular, since even highly processed GMO-derived food products are covered by new European legislations, a great effort has been devoted to the application of the analytical tests to these products.This work describes a polymerase chain reaction-based qualitative screening assay and a biosensor-based approach to detect transgenes in a Roundup Ready® soybean processing line. Roundup Ready® soybean was specifically analyzed in eight types of processed materials – seeds, crushed seeds, expander, crude flour, proteic flour, crude oil, degummed oil and lecithin – all derived from the same initial source and produced during the manufacturing process. Specific combinations of primers were used to differentiate sequences from the whole insert. The amplification of “marker” fragments with a maximum length of 500 bp was successfully achieved both in raw material (seeds) and in partially (crushed seeds, crude and proteic flours) and highly (crude and degummed oils and fluid lecithin) processed materials.Moreover, the extraction procedure was optimised and the polymerase chain reaction-electrophoresis analysis has been implemented by a biosensor-based approach.