It has been argued that the application of metabolomics to gene‐edited crops would present value in three areas: (i) the detection of gene‐edited crops; (ii) the characterization of unexpected changes that might affect safety; and (iii) building on the track record of rigorous government regulation in supporting consumer acceptance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Here, we offer a different perspective, relative to each of these areas: (i) metabolomics is unable to differentiate whether a mutation has resulted from gene editing or from traditional breeding techniques; (ii) it is risk‐disproportionate to apply metabolomics for regulatory purposes to search for possible compositional differences within crops developed using the least likely technique to generate unexpected compositional changes; and (iii) onerous regulations for genetically engineered crops have only contributed to unwarranted public fears, and repeating this approach for gene‐edited crops is unlikely to result in a different outcome. It is also suggested that article proposing the utility of specific analytical techniques to support risk assessment would benefit from the input of scientists with subject matter expertise in risk assessment.

中文翻译：

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对基因编辑作物进行强制性代谢组学分析的风险不成比例。


有人认为，代谢组学在基因编辑作物上的应用将在三个领域发挥价值：（i）基因编辑作物的检测； (ii) 可能影响安全的意外变化的特征； (iii) 建立在政府严格监管的基础上，支持消费者接受转基因生物（GMO）。在这里，我们针对每个领域提供了不同的观点：（i）代谢组学无法区分突变是由基因编辑还是传统育种技术引起的； (ii) 将代谢组学用于监管目的来寻找使用最不可能产生意外成分变化的技术开发的作物中可能的成分差异是不成比例的风险； (iii) 对基因工程作物的繁琐监管只会加剧公众毫无根据的恐惧，对基因编辑作物重复这种方法不太可能导致不同的结果。还建议提出使用特定分析技术来支持风险评估的文章将受益于具有风险评估主题专业知识的科学家的投入。