I can tell that no plant geneticists reviewed this paper, certainly no maize geneticists.<p>The authors claim to use a 'near-isogenic' line for a control.<p>> The varieties of maize used in this study were DKC 2678 Roundup-tolerant NK603 (Monsanto Corp., USA), and its nearest isogenic non-transgenic control DKC 2675<p>Yet no mention of how 'near' these lines are is made, nor is the seed provenance discussed. This is, frankly, absurd, as the Monsanto transgenic line began development decades ago. Presuming that the other inbred had been established at that point, there is a minimum of 20 years that these inbreds have been independently maintained.<p>A proper experiment would have introgressed the EPSPS transgene into a known inbred. That is the <i>only</i> way you can ensure that you have a consistent genetic background, and is standard practice in the maize community. This is, almost without exception, reported in a manuscript. It is that important.<p>To contextualize this, I've compared control groups of a particular inbred (e.g. B73, Mo17, A619) and seen substantial differences in RNAseq data, simply because it was seed stock from different labs. These are lines that have been shared within the past 10 years. The B73 inbred (from which the maize genome was/is sequenced) is notorious for being defined as 'a barrel of seed in Mike Freeling's lab'. Honesty, the sheer diversity of maize, along with wind pollination, complicated field conditions, and undergraduate help =P, make all maize inbreds a moving target.<p>This is not a small detail of the paper; all the results rely on these lines actually being 'near-isogenic'. Any small differences between them can easily account for the observed differences. Hell, even after 3 or 4 rounds of introgression, you can often visually see differences between lines that aren't actually due to the trait in question; it's just background noise.<p>Whatever your views on transgenic technology, I would not base any decision on this work.