The comparatively low adoption rate of GMO products in the European Union (EU) market seems to be connected with the strictness of authorization regulations and inefficiency of the authorization process itself. These problems will apply to any product deemed to be a GMO that could potentially be marketable in the EU. Since modern methods of plant breeding involving oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis (ODMs) or site-directed nucleases (SDNs), including Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), are becoming ever more popular, it is crucial to establish whether the products of such new breeding techniques (NBTs), in particular those which involve precise methods of mutagenesis, are exempted from the EU legislation on GMOs or not. Legal uncertainty as to their status may result in reluctance to invest in such methods and develop them further. Here, developments are presented in the legal classification of certain NBTs products in the context of recent decisions and jurisprudence. The socioeconomic aspects of GMO adoption in both global and European contexts are discussed. The legal and practical landscape of GMO regulation in the EU is presented and how it may pose an obstacle to investment and the development of new products. The latest jurisprudence (e.g., Case C-528/16) [1] on the interpretation of the legal concept of GMOs and the scope of the legislation are analyzed, with the conclusion that the strict regulations will probably also apply to products of the NBTs involving precise methods of mutagenesis. This in turn will probably result in the restriction of their application in the development of new plant varieties in the EU.

Consumers' attitude to genetic engineering provides information to stakeholders who are interested in its adoption, which is essential considering the emerging growth of new breeding techniques. This short article analyses, compares, and describes the knowledge, doubts, and concerns of Europeans about biotechnology and genetic engineering over the past 20 years.

Background: In plants, transposons and non-protein-coding repeats are epigenetically silenced by CG and non-CG methylation. This pattern of methylation is mediated in part by small RNAs and two specialized RNA polymerases, termed Pol IV and Pol V, in a process called RNA-directed DNA methylation. By contrast, many protein-coding genes transcribed by Pol II contain in their gene bodies exclusively CG methylation that is independent of small RNAs and Pol IV/Pol V activities. It is unclear how the different methylation machineries distinguish between transposons and genes. Here we report on a group of atypical genes that display in their coding region a transposon-like methylation pattern, which is associated with gene silencing in sporophytic tissues. Results: We performed a methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism analysis to search for targets of RNA-directed DNA methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana and identified several members of a gene family encoding cysteine-rich peptides (CRPs). In leaves, the CRP genes are silent and their coding regions contain dense, transposon-like methylation in CG, CHG and CHH contexts, which depends partly on the Pol IV/Pol V pathway and small RNAs. Methylation in the coding region is reduced, however, in the synergid cells of the female gametophyte, where the CRP genes are specifically expressed. Further demonstrating that expressed CRP genes lack gene body methylation, a CRP4-GFP fusion gene under the control of the constitutive 35 S promoter remains unmethylated in leaves and is transcribed to produce a translatable mRNA. By contrast, a CRP4-GFP fusion gene under the control of a CRP4 promoter fragment acquires CG and non-CG methylation in the CRP coding region in leaves similar to the silent endogenous CRP4 gene. Conclusions: Unlike CG methylation in gene bodies, which does not dramatically affect Pol II transcription, combined CG and non-CG methylation in CRP coding regions is likely to contribute to gene silencing in leaves because loss of this methylation in synergid cells is associated with CRP gene expression. We discuss this unusual methylation pattern and its alteration in synergid cells as well as the possible retrogene origin and evolutionary significance of CRP genes that are methylated like transposons.