Notes

Genetically modified crops provide more benefits than herbicides

The wild plants may possess the advantage of resistance to herbicides.

ラウンドアップ Credit: Xiao Yang
The use of genetic modification of crops to make them resistant to herbicides has been extensively employed to create advantages for the varieties of rice that are weedy. The results suggest that this modification may be able to have positive effects on wild rice varieties as well as crops.

A range of crop varieties have been modified genetically to make them resistant to Roundup herbicide glyphosate. Farmers are able to eliminate weeds from their fields with this glyphosate resistance , without damaging their crops.

Glyphosate hinders growth of plants by blocking an enzyme referred to as EPSP synthase. It is involved in the production of specific amino acids and other molecules that make up approximately 35% of the plant's mass. Genetic modification employed by Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops, which are located in St Louis (Missouri), typically involves inserting genes into a crop's DNA to increase EPSP synthase production. The genes are often derived from bacteria that has infected the plant.

ラウンドアップ This additional EPSP synthase allows plants to resist the effects from glyphosate. Biotechnology labs are also looking to use genes from plants rather than bacteria to boost EPSP synthase. This is partly because the US law allows for regulatory approval that allows organisms that have transgenes to be recognized as acceptable.

ラウンドアップ There aren't many studies that have examined whether transgenes such glyphosate-resistant genes are able to -- when introduced to wild or weedy plants through cross-pollination increase the competitiveness of these plants in terms of survival, reproduction and growth. Norman Ellstrand is a University of California Riverside plant geneticist. "The assumption is that any transgene could cause disadvantages in the wild, in the absence of select pressure, due to the fact that it reduces fitness," Ellstrand said.

Lu Baorong of Fudan University in Shanghai is currently challenging this view. The study shows that glyphosate resistance even when applied to an weedy varieties of the rice crop can provide a significant health benefit.

Lu and his colleagues modified the cultivars of rice to produce more EPSP synthase. They also crossed the modified rice with a weedy related. Their findings were published in NewPhytologist 1.

The team allowed the offspring of cross-breeding to mix with each other, creating second-generation hybrids that are genetically identical to one another, except for the amount of copies of the gene that encodes EPSP synase. ラウンドアップ 蓋 Likely, the ones with more copies expressed greater levels of the enzyme and also produced more of the amino acid tryptophan than the unmodified ones.

ラウンドアップ Researchers also found that transgenic hybrids produced 48 to 125 percent more seeds per plant, and had higher photosynthesis rates and produced more shoots than non-transgenic ones.

Making the weedy rice more competitive can exacerbate the problems it causes for farmers around the world where plots are ravaged by the pest, Lu says.

Brian Ford-Lloyd (a UK plant geneticist) states that if the EPSP synthase gene is introduced into wild rice species, their genetic diversity that is so important to conserve could be endangered. ラウンドアップ The transgene would outcompete normal species. "This is an example of the very real negative impacts of GM plantson our environment."

The belief of the public that genetically modified crops that contain additional copies of their genes are safe is questioned by this study. Lu declares, "Our study shows this is not the case."

The research results call for a review of future regulations for the genetically altered crops, scientists claim. Ellstrand believes that some believe biosafety regulations can be relaxed since we have two years of genetic engineering. "But the research still suggests that new products need careful analysis."


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