Notes

Genetically modified crops have advantages over the weeds

Wild plants might be resistant to herbicides.

ラウンドアップ Credit Xiao Yang
It has been established that a genetic modification technique, which is widely used to make crops resistant to herbicides, can provide advantages to an invasive variety of rice. The findings suggest that this modification may be able to be beneficial to wild rice varieties and the crops.

https://www.yodobashi.com/product/100000001002109951/ ラウンドアップ A variety of crops are genetically modified so that they can resist the glyphosate. This herbicide was first sold under the tradename Roundup. Farmers are able to eliminate herbicides from their fields by using glyphosate without harming their crops by having this resistance.

Glyphosate may hinder the growth of plants by blocking EPSP synase, an enzyme involved in the production of amino acids as well as other chemicals that make up about 35% of plants' mass. Genetic modification, for instance, the Roundup Ready crops manufactured by Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri, involves inserting genes into a plant's genetic code in order to increase EPSP production. ラウンドアップ Genes are usually derived from bacteria that infect crops.

The additional EPSP synthase allows the plant to be resistant to the effects of glyphosate. Biotechnology labs also tried to make use of the genes of plants to increase the EPSP synthase enzyme, in part to take advantage of a loophole in the American system that allows for regulatory approval of transgenes not derived bacterial pests.

Few studies have examined the possibility that transgenes similar to those which confer glyphosate resistance can help plants compete in reproduction and survival once they're introduced to weedy or wild relatives through cross-pollination. Norman Ellstrand is a University of California Riverside plant geneticist. "The assumption is that any kind of transgene will cause disadvantage in the wild in the absence of pressure to select, due to the fact that it reduces fitness," Ellstrand said.

ラウンドアップ A new study, led by Lu Baorong, an ecologist from Fudan University in Shanghai, is challenging that notion and shows that a weedy variant of the standard rice plant, Oryza sativa has an important boost in fitness due to the resistance to glyphosate even when glyphosate is not applied.

The research was published in 1. Lu and his colleagues genetically modified cultivated rice to increase its EPSP synthase expression and crossed it with a weedy counterpart.

The team then allowed offspring that were cross-bred to breed with one-another, creating second generation hybrids that were genetically identical to their parents with the exception for how many copies of the gene that encodes EPSP synthase. The team found that those that had more copies of the gene that encodes EPSP synthase expressed more enzymes and produced more tryptophan which is what we expected.

ラウンドアップ Researchers also discovered that transgenic hybrids were more photogenic, produced more plants per plant and yielded 48-125 percent higher yields of seeds than non-transgenic varieties.

Lu believes making weedy, invasive rice more competitive may make it harder for farmers to repair the damage caused by this pest.

"If the EPSP-synthase gene is introduced into the wild rice species, their genetic diversity, which is really important to conserve is at risk because the genotype with the transgene would outcompete the natural species" Brian Ford-Lloyd an expert in plant genetics at the University of Birmingham, UK. "This is among the most clear examples of highly plausible negative effects (of GM crops] on the environment."

The public belief that genetically-modified crops that contain additional copies of their genes are safer is disproved by this research. Lu declares that "our study is not proving that this is true."

A few researchers believe this discovery needs to be reviewed in light of future regulation of crops that have been genetically modified. https://search.rakuten.co.jp/search/mall/%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97+%E3%83%9E%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89/ Ellstrand says "Some people believe that regulation of biosafety should be looser." Ellstrand addsthat "But the study still indicates that innovative products require careful evaluation."


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