Development and application of a novel multiplex PCR method for four living modified soybeans

Since the early 1990s when the first commercialization of living modified organism (LMO), LMO has been developed to improve nutrient quality and productivity of crops. As the self-sufficiency rate of soybean has gradually decreased in South Korea, most of soybeans have been imported. The cultivation and trade of LM crops are regulated in many countries and authorizations for the use are mandatory in most. In South Korea, the cultivation of LM crop is not allowed and unintentional release of LMO into the natural environment is prohibited. In this study, we developed a novel multiplex PCR method for four LM soybean events (CV127, MON87705, FG72 and MON87701) which were approved recently in South Korea. Multiplex PCR primers were designed for PCR amplification of four LMO event-specific fragments, and we analyzed 41 environmental monitoring samples to confirm the efficiency of this method. These results indicated that the multiplex PCR detection method is sufficient for four LM soybeans found in the natural environment. Based on our finding, we suggest that the new technique may be useful as a lead tool for the development of a detection method for various LMO/GMOs.