Can transgenic rice cause ecological risks through transgene escape?

Abstract Alien transgene escape from genetically engineered rice to non-transgenic varieties or close wild relatives (includingweedy rice) may lead to unpredictable ecological risks. However, for transgene escape to occur three conditions need to be met: (i) spa-tially, transgenic rice and its non-transgenic counterparts or wild relatives should have sympatric distributions; (ii) temporally, the flower-ing time of transgenic rice and the non-transgenic varieties or wild relatives should overlap; and (iii) biologically, transgenic rice and itswild relative species should have such a sufficiently close relationship that their interspecific hybrids can have normal generative reproduc-tion. This paper presents research data on the geographic distribution, flowering habits, interspecific hybridization, and gene flow of culti-vated rice (Oryza sativa) and its closely related wild relatives containing the AA genome. The objective is to estimate the possibility oftransgene escape to non-transgenic rice varietie