Gene-edited CRISPR mushroom escapes US regulation
By Emily Waltz,
Nature
| 04. 14. 2016
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will not regulate a mushroom genetically modified with the gene-editing tool CRISPR–Cas9.
The long-awaited decision means that the mushroom can be cultivated and sold without passing through the agency's regulatory process — making it the first CRISPR-edited organism to receive a green light from the US government.
“The research community will be very happy with the news,” says Caixia Gao, a plant biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology in Beijing, who was not involved in developing the mushroom. “I am confident we'll see more gene-edited crops falling outside of regulatory authority.”
Yinong Yang, a plant pathologist at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in University Park, engineered the common white button (Agaricus bisporus) mushroom to resist browning. The effect is achieved by targeting the family of genes that encodes polyphenol oxidase (PPO) — an enzyme that causes browning. By deleting just a handful of base pairs in the mushroom’s genome, Yang knocked out one of six PPO genes — reducing the enzyme’s activity by 30%...
Related Articles
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
By Julie Métraux, Mother Jones | 09.23.2025