Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Seen any clone armies in your backyard lately? Probably not. This might surprise you if you are old enough to remember the ethical panic that greeted the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, in Scotland 21 years ago.

The cloned creature set off a crazy overreaction, with fears of clone armies, re-creating the dead, and a host of other horrors, monsters, abuses and terrors none of which has come to pass. That is why it is so important, amid all the moral hand-wringing about what could happen as human genetic engineering emerges, to keep our ethical eye on the right ball. Freaking out over impending superbabies and mutant humans with the powers of comic book characters is not what is needed.

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University, has used genetic engineering on human sperm and a pre-embryo. The group is doing basic research to figure out if new forms of genetic engineering might be able to prevent or repair terrible hereditary diseases.

How close are they to making freakish superpeople using their technology? About as close as we are to traveling intergalactically using current rocket technology.

So what should we be worrying about as this rudimentary but promising technique tries to get off the launch pad?

First and foremost, oversight of what is going on. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has banned federal funding for genetic engineering of sperm, eggs, pre-embryos or embryos. That means everything goes on in the private or philanthropic world here or overseas, without much guidance. We need clear rules with teeth to keep anyone from trying to go too fast or deciding to try to cure anything in an embryo intended to become an actual human being without rock-solid safety data.

Second, we need to determine who should own the techniques for genetic engineering. Important patent fights are underway among the technology's inventors. That means people smell lots of money. And that means it is time to talk about who gets to own what and charge what, lest we reinvent the world of the $250,000 drug in this area of medicine.

Finally, human genetic engineering needs to be monitored closely: all experiments registered, all data reported on a public database and all outcomes good and bad made available to all scientists and anyone else tracking this area of research. Secrecy is the worst enemy that human genetic engineering could possibly have.

Let your great-great-grandkids fret about whether they want to try to make a perfect baby. Today we need to worry about who will own genetic engineering technology, how we can oversee what is being done with it and how safe it needs to be before it is used to try to prevent or fix a disease.

That is plenty to worry about.

Arthur L. Caplan is head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine.

See the rest here:
Don't fear the rise of superbabies. Worry about who will own genetic engineering technology. - Chicago Tribune

What began as a broad-based and occasionally sympathetic conduit for anti-Trump activists has evolved into a platform for the maladjusted to receive unhealthy levels of public scrutiny. The cycle has become a depressingly familiar. A relatively obscure member of the political class achieves viral notoriety and becomes a figure of cult-like popularity with some uncompromising display of opposition toward the president only to humiliate themselves and their followers in short order.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is not the first to be feted by liberals as the embodiment of noble opposition to authoritarianism. In May, the Center for American Progress blog dubbed her the patron saint of resistance politics. Left-leaning viral-politics websites now routinely praise Waters as a Trump-bashing resistance leader, the Democratic rock star of 2017, and an all-around badass for her unflagging commitment to trashing the president as a crooked and racist liar, the Daily Beast observed. Waters was even honored by an audience of tweens and entertainers at this years MTV Movie Awards. Even a modestly curious review of Waters record would have led more cautious political actors to keep their distance. Time bombs have a habit of going off.

Zero hour arrived late Friday evening when Waters broke the news of a forthcoming putsch. Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration, the congresswoman from California wrote. Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition. That sounds crazy, but its a familiar kind of crazy.

Anyone who has followed the congresswomans career knows she has a history of making inflammatory assertions for the benefit of her audience. It only takes a cursory google search to discover that, in her decade in politics, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has named her the most corrupt member of Congress four times and the misconduct of her chief of staff ensnared her in a House Ethics Committee probe. The Resistance is willing to overlook a plethora of flaws and misdeeds as long as their prior assumptions are validated.

This is not the first time its own heroes have undercut The Resistance.

National Reviews Charles C. W. Cooke recently demonstrated why Louise Mensch, formerly a prominent poster child for The Resistance, has a habit of seeing Russians behind every darkened corner. They are responsible for riots in Missouri, Democratic losses at the polls, and Anthony Weiners libido. In Menschs imagination, a secret Republican Guard is mere moments away from dispatching this administration amid some species of constitutional coup. Cooke also noted that Mensch was elevated to unearned status as a celebrity of the Resistance by the anti-Trump commentary class desperate for what she was selling.

Menschs star has faded, but not before she managed to embarrass those who invested confidence in her sources. Those who embraced her should have been more cautious in the process. Menschs British compatriots long ago caught onto her habit of lashing out at phantoms. A prudent political class would have given her a wide berth.

25-year-old Teen Vogue columnist Lauren Duca became a sensation last December when her article accusing the president of gas lighting the nation went viral. She was festooned with praise for her work from forlorn Democratsculminating in a letter of praise from Hillary Clintonand soon found herself the subject of fawning New York Times profiles and delivering college commencement addresses without any apparent effort to vet her work.

Duca, too, became a source of bias-confirming misinformation for the left. Cute pic of Trump getting tired of winning, she tweeted with the image of an airplane going down in flames. The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before it provided a means by which the pro-Trump right could credibly undermine her integrity.

Attributable only to a plague mass hysteria, liberal Trump opponents collectively determined last December that a paranoid, 127-tweet rant was a work of unpatrolled genius. That diatribe was the work of Eric Garland, a self-described D.C. technocrat based in Missouri whos now infamous game theory polemic was an example of what he calls his spastic historical and political narratives.

Journalists and political activists who surveyed his work declared it not just compelling anti-Trump prose but near historic in its brilliance. It was anything but. Laced with profanity, exaggerated misspellings to caricature his political opponents, and an offensively indiscreet application of the caps lock, Garland threaded 9/11, Al Gore, Hurricane Katrina, Edward Snowden, and Fox News to tell the tale of how Americas sovereignty was repeatedly violated. The Resistance abandoned its better judgment.

It wasnt long before Garland had humiliated anyone who ever treated him as a credible political observer. Rupert Murdoch is a threat to Western Civilization and a Russian operative, he wrote. I WONT BE THE FIRST GARLAND OF MY LINE TO SPILL BLOOD FOR AMERICA AND THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY AND NEVER THE LAST, YOU F***ERS. This kind of hyperventilating excess came as no surprise to anyone who didnt read his manic thread through tears as they struggled to come to terms with the age of Trump.

If Democrats hope to strike a favorable contrast with a lackadaisical White House, theyre not well served by surrounding themselves with reckless people. Too often, the faces of The Resistance wither in the spotlight. A serious movement attracts serious opposition. A frivolous, self-gratifying movement, well, doesnt.

See the rest here:
We Need to Talk About Genetic Engineering - Commentary Magazine

Genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering, is a technologically advanced way to select desirable traits in crops. While selective breeding has existed for thousands of years, modern biotechnology is more efficient and effective because seed developers are able to directly modify the genome of the crop. Plants that are genetically engineered (GE) have been selectively bred and enhanced with genes to withstand common problems that confront farmers. These include strains of wheat that are more resistant to drought, maize that can survive pesticides, and cassava that is biofortified with additional nutrients. In addition to resistance-based attributes and biofortification, some GM crops can produce higher yields from the same planted area. GM crops have the potential to strengthen farming and food security by granting more certainty against the unpredictable factors of nature. These resistances and higher yields hold great promise for the developing world and for global food security. Yet, controversy remains over access to this biotechnology, corporation patents on certain plant strains, and claims regarding the safety and quality of GM foods as compared to non-GM foods.

Why are seed developers genetically modified organisms? Genetic modification can protect crops against threats to strong yields, such as diseases, drought, pests, and herbicides used to control weeds, and therefore improve the efficiency of food production. While farmers have been selectively breeding plants for centuries, genetic engineering allows new traits to be developed much more quickly. Utilising traditional selective breeding can take multiple growing seasons to develop and test a new variety. Genetic engineering is more precise than conventional hybridisation and therefore is less likely to produce unexpected results. For example, mutagenic breeding is not considered genetic engineering, yet it exposes plant material to radiation or chemicals to create varieties with new traits.

GMOs seem to be in the news a lot lately. Is the GMO process new? GMOs are in the news a lot right now, but not because they are new. They have actually been in our food supply for nearly 20 years. Farmers have been using hybridisation and mutation breeding of crops to improve their resistance to pests or environmental conditions for decades. But scientists began to sufficiently understand the genetic makeup of certain plants to be able to modify genes that would strengthen the plants ability to resist new pests or diseases and thus improve yields so that farmers began planting GMO crops in the mid-1990s.

What are the effects of genetic modification on the environment? In order to feed a world population that is expected to top 9 billion by 2050 and to do so in ways that do not harm the environment, farmers will need to roughly double current production levels on about the same amount of land. Genetically modified crops are more efficient and therefore use less agricultural inputs to produce the same amount of food. From 1996-2012, without GM crops the world would have needed 123 million more hectares of land for equal crop production. GM technology reduced pesticide use by 8.9 per cent in the period from 1996- 2011. Because genetically modified crops require less ploughing and chemical usage, GM technology can reduce fossil fuel and CO2 emissions. Genetic engineering can therefore help to ameliorate the effects of agriculture on the environment. Farming accounted for 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 and 70 percent of freshwater use. Additionally, scientists are developing GM crops that are resistant to flood, drought, and cold, which improves agricultural resistance to climate change. GM crops also allow for greater use of no-till cultivation, which helps with carbon sequestration, soil erosion prevention, and better soil fertility.

How are GM crops related to nutrition and food security? Genetic modification can improve the nutritional profile of food and therefore serves as a key element in reducing global rates of malnutrition. For instance, golden rice is enhanced with beta-carotene and therefore provides a dose of vitamin A, a nutrient lacking in many diets around the world. Vitamin A deficiency leads to the death of nearly 700,000 children each year, so golden rice is a crucial initiative in reducing malnutrition. Additionally, in India, using BT corn led to the consumption of more nutritious foods, including fruits, vegetables, and animal products because of increased incomes. Another study in India showed that each hectare of BT cotton increased caloric intake by 74 calories per person per day and that 7.93 per cent of households using BT cotton were food insecure as opposed to 19.94 per cent of those using non-GM cotton.

What is the scientific consensus of the impact of GM foods on humans? From 2003-13, 1,783 studies showed no human or environmental dangers from genetically engineered crops, with a study concluding that the scientific research conducted thus far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops. The European Commission released a meta study of 50 research projects and found that the use of biotechnology and of GE plants per se does not imply higher risks than classical breeding methods or production technologies. One study in 2013 suggested that consumption of GM foods affected the health of lab animals, but the studys publication was subsequently pulled and its findings undermined because of digressions from standard scientific research principles.

Why use genetic engineering if other methods are just as effective at boosting productivity? Genetic engineering research has focused on overcoming problems that affect productivity, such as disease, weeds, and pests. When crops can avoid disease, weeds, and pests, crop yield is enhanced. Genetic modification is only one of the tools that farmers can use to boost productivity, and it does not eliminate the need for other advances such as hybridization, agricultural chemicals, and farm machinery. Rather, genetic modification is a technologically advanced application of biotechnology that works in conjunction with other modern agricultural practices. Dr Rose Maxwell Gidado is the Country Coordinator for Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB).

Many dont know honey exportation is a goldmine NAQS boss

Prices of grains will fall soon

Read the original here:
Understanding the basics of Genetically-Modified Organisms - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (press release) (blog)

The approach is generic enough that you could theoretically apply it to other flowering plants. Blue roses, anyone? There are broader possibilities, too. While the exact techniques clearly won't translate to other lifeforms, this might hint at what's required to produce blue eyes or feathers. And these color changes would be useful for more than just cosmetics. Pollinating insects tend to prefer blue, so this could help spread plant life that has trouble competing in a given habitat.

Just don't count on picking up a blue bouquet. You need a permit to sell any genetically modified organism in the US, and there's a real concern that these gene-modified flowers might spread and create havoc in local ecosystems. The research team hopes to make tweaked chrysanthemums that don't breed, but that also means you're unlikely to see them widely distributed even if they do move beyond the lab. Any public availability would likely hinge on a careful understanding of the flowers' long-term impact.

Continue reading here:
Genetic engineering creates an unnaturally blue flower - Engadget

Naonobu Noda/NARO

Giving chrysanthemums the blues was easier than researchers thought it would be.

Roses are red, but science could someday turn them blue. Thats one of the possible future applications of a technique researchers have used to genetically engineer blue chrysanthemums for the first time.

Chyrsanthemums come in an array of colours, including pink, yellow and red. But all it took to engineer the truly blue hue and not a violet or bluish colour was tinkering with two genes, scientists report in a study published on 26 July in Science Advances1. The team says that the approach could be applied to other commercially important flowers, including carnations and lilies.

Consumers love novelty, says Nick Albert, a plant biologist at the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand. And people actively seek out plants with blue flowers to fill their gardens.

Plenty of flowers are bluish, but its rare to find true blue in nature, says Naonobu Noda, a plant researcher at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization near Tsukuba, Japan, and lead study author. Scientists, including Noda, have tried to artificially produce blue blooms for years: efforts that have often produced violet or bluish hues in flowers such as roses and carnations. Part of the problem is that naturally blue blossoming plants arent closely related enough to commercially important flowers for traditional methods including selective breeding to work.

Most truly blue blossoms overexpress genes that trigger the production of pigments called delphinidin-based anthocyanins. The trick to getting blue flowers in species that arent naturally that colour is inserting the right combination of genes into their genomes. Noda came close in a 2013 study2 when he and his colleagues found that adding a gene from a naturally blue Canterbury bells flower (Campanula medium) into the DNA of chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum morifolium) produced a violet-hued bloom.

Noda says he and his team expected that they would need to manipulate many more genes to get the blue chrysanthemum they produced in their latest study. But to their surprise, adding only one more borrowed gene from the naturally blue butterfly pea plant (Clitoria ternatea) was enough.

Anthocyanins can turn petals red, violet or blue, depending on the pigments structure. Noda and his colleagues found that genes from the Canterbury bells and butterfly pea altered the molecular structure of the anthocyanin in the chrysanthemum. When the modified pigments interacted with compounds called flavone glucosides, the resulting chrysanthemum flowers were blue. The team tested the wavelengths given off by their blossoms in several ways to ensure that the flowers were truly blue.

The quest for blue blooms wouldn't only be applicable to the commercial flower market. Studying how these pigments work could also lead to the sustainable manufacture of artificial pigments, says Silvia Vignolini, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, UK, who has studied the molecular structure of the intensely blue marble berry.

Regardless, producing truly blue flowers is a great achievement and demonstrates that the underlying chemistry required to achieve 'blue' is complex and remains to be fully understood, says Albert.

Originally posted here:
'True blue' chrysanthemum flowers produced with genetic ... - Nature - Nature.com

July 31, 2017 by Jessica Berg, The Conversation Theres still a way to go from editing single-cell embryos to a full-term designer baby. Credit: ZEISS Microscopy, CC BY-SA

The announcement by researchers in Portland, Oregon that they've successfully modified the genetic material of a human embryo took some people by surprise.

With headlines referring to "groundbreaking" research and "designer babies," you might wonder what the scientists actually accomplished. This was a big step forward, but hardly unexpected. As this kind of work proceeds, it continues to raise questions about ethical issues and how we should we react.

What did researchers actually do?

For a number of years now we have had the ability to alter genetic material in a cell, using a technique called CRISPR.

The DNA that makes up our genome comprises long sequences of base pairs, each base indicated by one of four letters. These letters form a genetic alphabet, and the "words" or "sentences" created from a particular order of letters are the genes that determine our characteristics.

Sometimes words can be "misspelled" or sentences slightly garbled, resulting in a disease or disorder. Genetic engineering is designed to correct those mistakes. CRISPR is a tool that enables scientists to target a specific area of a gene, working like the search-and-replace function in Microsoft Word, to remove a section and insert the "correct" sequence.

In the last decade, CRISPR has been the primary tool for those seeking to modify genes human and otherwise. Among other things, it has been used in experiments to make mosquitoes resistant to malaria, genetically modify plants to be resistant to disease, explore the possibility of engineered pets and livestock, and potentially treat some human diseases (including HIV, hemophilia and leukemia).

Up until recently, the focus in humans has been on changing the cells of a single individual, and not changing eggs, sperm and early embryos what are called the "germline" cells that pass traits along to offspring. The theory is that focusing on non-germline cells would limit any unexpected long-term impact of genetic changes on descendants. At the same time, this limitation means that we would have to use the technique in every generation, which affects its potential therapeutic benefit.

Earlier this year, an international committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that, while highlighting the concerns with human germline genetic engineering, laid out a series of safeguards and recommended oversight. The report was widely regarded as opening the door to embryo-editing research.

That is exactly what happened in Oregon. Although this is the first study reported in the United States, similar research has been conducted in China. This new study, however, apparently avoided previous errors we've seen with CRISPR such as changes in other, untargeted parts of the genome, or the desired change not occurring in all cells. Both of these problems had made scientists wary of using CRISPR to make changes in embryos that might eventually be used in a human pregnancy. Evidence of more successful (and thus safer) CRISPR use may lead to additional studies involving human embryos.

What didn't happen in Oregon?

First, this study did not entail the creation of "designer babies," despite some news headlines. The research involved only early stage embryos, outside the womb, none of which was allowed to develop beyond a few days.

In fact, there are a number of existing limits both policy-based and scientific that will create barriers to implanting an edited embryo to achieve the birth of a child. There is a federal ban on funding gene editing research in embryos; in some states, there are also total bans on embryo research, regardless of how funded. In addition, the implantation of an edited human embryos would be regulated under the federal human research regulations, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and potentially the federal rules regarding clinical laboratory testing.

Beyond the regulatory barriers, we are a long way from having the scientific knowledge necessary to design our children. While the Oregon experiment focused on a single gene correction to inherited diseases, there are few human traits that are controlled by one gene. Anything that involves multiple genes or a gene/environment interaction will be less amenable to this type of engineering. Most characteristics we might be interested in designing such as intelligence, personality, athletic or artistic or musical ability are much more complex.

Second, while this is a significant step forward in the science regarding the use of the CRISPR technique, it is only one step. There is a long way to go between this and a cure for various disease and disorders. This is not to say that there aren't concerns. But we have some time to consider the issues before the use of the technique becomes a mainstream medical practice.

So what should we be concerned about?

Taking into account the cautions above, we do need to decide when and how we should use this technique.

Should there be limits on the types of things you can edit in an embryo? If so, what should they entail? These questions also involve deciding who gets to set the limits and control access to the technology.

We may also be concerned about who gets to control the subsequent research using this technology. Should there be state or federal oversight? Keep in mind that we cannot control what happens in other countries. Even in this country it can be difficult to craft guidelines that restrict only the research someone finds objectionable, while allowing other important research to continue. Additionally, the use of assisted reproductive technologies (IVF, for example) is largely unregulated in the U.S., and the decision to put in place restrictions will certainly raise objections from both potential parents and IVF providers.

Moreover, there are important questions about cost and access. Right now most assisted reproductive technologies are available only to higher-income individuals. A handful of states mandate infertility treatment coverage, but it is very limited. How should we regulate access to embryo editing for serious diseases? We are in the midst of a widespread debate about health care, access and cost. If it becomes established and safe, should this technique be part of a basic package of health care services when used to help create a child who does not suffer from a specific genetic problem? What about editing for nonhealth issues or less serious problems are there fairness concerns if only people with sufficient wealth can access?

So far the promise of genetic engineering for disease eradication has not lived up to its hype. Nor have many other milestones, like the 1996 cloning of Dolly the sheep, resulted in the feared apocalypse. The announcement of the Oregon study is only the next step in a long line of research. Nonetheless, it is sure to bring many of the issues about embryos, stem cell research, genetic engineering and reproductive technologies back into the spotlight. Now is the time to figure out how we want to see this gene-editing path unfold.

Explore further: In US first, scientists edit genes of human embryos (Update)

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

For the first time in the United States, scientists have edited the genes of human embryos, a controversial step toward someday helping babies avoid inherited diseases.

(Phys.org)A team of researchers in China has announced that they have performed gene editing on human embryos. In their paper uploaded to the open access site Protein & Cell (after being rejected by Nature and Science) ...

(Medical Xpress)A team of researchers at Guangzhou Medical University in China has published a paper in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics describing their efforts to genetically modify a human embryo using ...

This week, scientists gathered in Washington, DC for the International Summit on Human Gene Editing to discuss a technology called CRISPR-CAS9, which can insert, remove and change the DNA of basically any organism. It is ...

Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin took an important step toward safer gene-editing cures for life-threatening disorders, from cancer to HIV to Huntington's disease, by developing a technique that can spot ...

Don't expect designer babies any time soonbut a major new ethics report leaves open the possibility of one day altering human heredity to fight genetic diseases, with stringent oversight, using new tools that precisely ...

A transparent ranking system for measuring the socio-economic impact of plants and animals that are introduced by humans to areas where they do not naturally occur (termed "aliens") has been developed by an international ...

The field of medicine has come a long way from using heroine as a cough remedy or magnet therapy to improve blood flow. These outdated methods were put to bed decades ago. But there are plenty of ancient medicinal practices ...

The announcement by researchers in Portland, Oregon that they've successfully modified the genetic material of a human embryo took some people by surprise.

Methylation and nitric oxide (NO)-based S-nitrosylation are highly conserved protein posttranslational modifications that regulate diverse biological processes, including abiotic stress responses. However, little is known ...

Choosing between sex or sleep presents a behavioral quandary for many species, including the fruit fly. A multi-institution team has found that, in Drosophila at least, males and females deal with these competing imperatives ...

Cell division is an essential process in humans, animals and plants as dying or injured cells are replenished throughout life. Cells divide at least a billion times in the average person, usually without any problem. However, ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

See the original post:
Editing human embryos with CRISPR is moving ahead now's the time to work out the ethics - Phys.Org

The last several decades have witnessed a remarkable increase in crop yields doubling major grain crops since the 1950s. But a significant part of the world still suffers from malnutrition, and these gains in grains and other crops probably wont be enough to feed a growing global population.

These facts have put farmers and agricultural scientists on a quest to squeeze more yield from plants (and livestock), and how to make these yield increases more sustainable. The best land is already taken and could be altered by climate changes, so new crops may have to be grown in less hospitable locations, and the soils and nutrition in existing lands need to be better preserved.

Several methods are being used to boost yields with less fertilizer or pesticides, including traditional combination techniques, marker-assisted breeding, and, of course, trans- and cis-genic modifications.

One way to get more food from a plant is through another genetic switch. It may be possible to genetically, either through hybridization, mutagenesis, or genetic engineering to alter a plant so that it transforms from an annual (one you have to replant every year) to a perennial (which you plant once and can thrive for many years).

This video from Washington State University discusses some advantages of perennial crops:

Most staples, like corn, wheat, sorghum and other grains are annuals. About 75 percent of US and 69 percent of global croplands are cereal, oilseed and legumes, and all of those are annuals, said Jerry Glover, plant geneticist at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and John Reganold, a geneticist at Washington State University. This means, they wrote:

They must be replanted each year from seed, require large amounts of expensive fertilizers and pesticides, poorly protect soil and water, and provide little habitat for wildlife. Their production emits significant greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change that can in turn have adverse effects on agricultural productivity.

Perennials, meanwhile, have longer growing seasons and more extensive roots, making them more productive, and more efficient at capturing nutrients and water from the soil. Replanting isnt necessary, reducing pesticide and fertilizer use, and reducing the need to use tractors and other mechanical planters in fields. Erosion also can be reduced. Its been estimated that annual grains can lose five times more water and 35 times more nitrate than perennial grains. All plants at one time were perennials, and breeders and farmers concentrated on breeding new annuals that could meet a farmers (and consumers) needs.

Now, the table has turned. Genetics may make the annual-to-perennial transformation easier. The switch to perennials is not a new avenue of research, but its been a rocky road. Scientists in the former USSR and the US tried to create perennial wheat in the 1960s, but the offspring plants were sterile and didnt deliver on desired traits. Since then, scientists worldwide have looked at deriving perennials from annual and perennial parents using molecular markers tied to desirable traits (and the genes responsible for them). This technique, and knowing the genotypes of more and more plants, has made it possible to combine desirable genes with traditional and genetic engineering methods to find these desirable perennial plants.

Glover has pointed out that molecular markers tied to desirable traits (higher yields, disease resistance, etc.) can allow for faster breeding by determining the sources of plant variation, and that plant genomics has facilitated the combination of genes without having to field test over years at a time. Genetic modifications can also help spur this along.

Andrew Paterson, head of the plant genome laboratory at the University of Georgia, has studied for years the development of perennial sorghum one of the top five cerealon the planet. Sorghums drought resistance has made it useful as a grain and biomass source in degraded soil, and a perennial version (which has happened spontaneously twice) could reduce drought losses even to other crops. Patersons genetic analysis of wild perennials and cultivated annuals has shown the genes involved in perennial ism and offered DNA markers for more precise breeding.

Techniques like CRISPR/Cas9, which can precisely edit, insert or delete genes at specific locations, are being studied for their possible role in transforming perennials, but a few challenges remain. Chung-Jui Tsai at the University of Georgia, recently showed that CRISPR could be used to alter genes in existing perennials (like fruit and nut trees, for example), once some hurdles like frequent polymorphisms and other variations could be overcome.

Still others are not so optimistic about using genetic modification to enact the perennial-annual switch. First, the whole field would require much more research funding than currently exists, Glover warns. Then, as Paterson told Brooke Borel in her article in Popular Science, perennial traits are much more complicated than those currently addressed by genetic engineering. We dont really know all of the genes involved, not yet:

We dont actually have any of the genes in hand. We know where they are in the genome and we are working on their locations more and more finely, but there arent any of these genes that we can yet point to the specific gene among the 30,000 or so in sorghum. Even if they did know the exact genes, most GMOs that are currently available only insert a single new trait rather than information from multiple genes. The technology isnt yet able to handle something so complicated as perennialism.

Andrew Porterfieldis a writer, editor and communications consultant for academic institutions, companies and non-profits in the life sciences. He is based in Camarillo, California. Follow@AMPorterfieldon Twitter.

View post:
Can genetic modification turn annual crops into perennials? - Genetic Literacy Project

July 27, 2017 Which is more disruptive to a plant: genetic engineering or conventional breeding?

It often surprises people to learn that GE commonly causes less disruption to plants than conventional techniques of breeding. But equally profound is the realization that the latest GE techniques, coupled with a rapidly expanding ability to analyze massive amounts of genetic material, allow us to make super-modest changes in crop plant genes that will enable farmers to produce more food with fewer adverse environmental impacts. Such super-modest changes are possible with CRISPR-based genome editing, a powerful set of new genetic tools that is leading a revolution in biology.

My interest in GE crops stems from my desire to provide more effective and sustainable plant disease control for farmers worldwide. Diseases often destroy 10 to 15 percent of potential crop production, resulting in global losses of billions of dollars annually. The risk of disease-related losses provides an incentive to farmers to use disease-control products such as pesticides. One of my strongest areas of expertise is in the use of pesticides for disease control. Pesticides certainly can be useful in farming systems worldwide, but they have significant downsides from a sustainability perspective. Used improperly, they can contaminate foods. They can pose a risk to farm workers. And they must be manufactured, shipped and applied all processes with a measurable environmental footprint. Therefore, I am always seeking to reduce pesticide use by offering farmers more sustainable approaches to disease management.

What follows are examples of how minimal GE changes can be applied to make farming more environmentally friendly by protecting crops from disease. They represent just a small sampling of the broad landscape of opportunities for enhancing food security and agricultural sustainability that innovations in molecular biology offer today.

Genetically altering crops the way these examples demonstrate creates no cause for concern for plants or people. Mutations occur naturally every time a plant makes a seed; in fact, they are the very foundation of evolution. All of the food we eat has all kinds of mutations, and eating plants with mutations does not cause mutations in us.

Knocking Out Susceptibility

A striking example of how a tiny genetic change can make a big difference to plant health is the strategy of knocking out a plant gene that microorganisms can benefit from. Invading microorganisms sometimes hijack certain plant molecules to help themselves infect the plant. A gene that produces such a plant molecule is known as a susceptibility gene.

We can use CRISPR-based genome editing to create a targeted mutation in a susceptibility gene. A change of as little as a single nucleotide in the plants genetic material the smallest genetic change possible can confer disease resistance in a way that is absolutely indistinguishable from natural mutations that can happen spontaneously. Yet if the target gene and mutation site are carefully selected, a one-nucleotide mutation may be enough to achieve an important outcome.

There is a substantial body of research showing proof-of-concept that a knockout of a susceptibility gene can increase resistance in plants to a very wide variety of disease-causing microorganisms. An example that caught my attention pertained to powdery mildew of wheat, because fungicides (pesticides that control fungi) are commonly used against this disease. While this particular genetic knockout is not yet commercialized, I personally would rather eat wheat products from varieties that control disease through genetics than from crops treated with fungicides.

The Power of Viral Snippets

Plant viruses are often difficult to control in susceptible crop varieties. Conventional breeding can help make plants resistant to viruses, but sometimes it is not successful.

Early approaches to engineering virus resistance in plants involved inserting a gene from the virus into the plants genetic material. For example, plant-infecting viruses are surrounded by a protective layer of protein, called the coat protein. The gene for the coat protein of a virus called papaya ring spot virus was inserted into papaya. Through a process called RNAi, this empowers the plant to inactivate the virus when it invades. GE papaya has been a spectacular success, in large part saving the Hawaiian papaya industry.

Aerial view of a field trial showing virus-resistant papaya growing well while the surrounding susceptible papaya is severely damaged by the virus. Reproduced with permission from Gonsalves, D., et al. 2004. Transgenic virus-resistant papaya: From hope to reality in controlling papaya ringspot virus in Hawaii. APSnet Features. Online. DOI: 10.1094/APSnetFeature-2004-0704

Through time, researchers discovered that even just a very small fragment from one viral gene can stimulate RNAi-based resistance if precisely placed within a specific location in the plants DNA. Even better, they found we can stack resistance genes engineered with extremely modest changes in order to create a plant highly resistant to multiple viruses. This is important because, in the field, crops are often exposed to infection by several viruses.

Does eating this tiny bit of a viral gene sequence concern me? Absolutely not, for many reasons, including:

Tweaking Sentry Molecules

Microorganisms can often overcome plants biochemical defenses by producing molecules called effectors that interfere with those defenses. Plants respond by evolving proteins to recognize and disable these effector molecules. These recognition proteins are called R proteins (R standing for resistance). Their job is to recognize the invading effector molecule and trigger additional defenses. A third interesting approach, then, to help plants resist an invading microorganism is to engineer an R protein so that it recognizes effector molecules other than the one it evolved to detect. We can then use CRISPR to supply a plant with the very small amount of DNA needed to empower it to make this protein.

This approach, like susceptibility knockouts, is quite feasible, based on published research. Commercial implementation will require some willing private- or public-sector entity to do the development work and to face the very substantial and costly challenges of the regulatory process.

Engineered for Sustainability

The three examples here show that extremely modest engineered changes in plant genetics can result in very important benefits. All three examples involve engineered changes that trigger the natural defenses of the plant. No novel defense mechanisms were introduced in these research projects, a fact that may appeal to some consumers. The wise use of the advanced GE methods illustrated here, as well as others described elsewhere, has the potential to increase the sustainability of our food production systems, particularly given the well-established safety of GE crops and their products for consumption.

Originally posted here:
When genetic engineering is the environmentally friendly choice - Ensia

Roses are red, but science could someday turn them blue. Thats one of the possible future applications of a technique researchers have used to genetically engineer blue chrysanthemums for the first time.

Chyrsanthemums come in an array of colours, including pink, yellow and red. But all it took to engineer the truly blue hueand not a violet or bluish colourwas tinkering with two genes, scientists report in a study published on July 26 inScience Advances. The team says that the approach could be applied to other commercially important flowers, including carnations and lilies.

Consumers love novelty, says Nick Albert, a plant biologist at the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand. And people actively seek out plants with blue flowers to fill their gardens.

Plenty of flowers are bluish, but its rare to find true blue in nature, says Naonobu Noda, a plant researcher at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization near Tsukuba, Japan, and lead study author. Scientists, including Noda, have tried to artificially produce blue blooms for years:efforts that have often produced violet or bluish huesin flowers such as roses and carnations. Part of the problem is that naturally blue blossoming plants arent closely related enough to commercially important flowers for traditional methodsincluding selective breedingto work.

Most truly blue blossoms overexpress genes that trigger the production of pigments called delphinidin-based anthocyanins. The trick to getting blue flowers in species that arent naturally that colour is inserting the right combination of genes into their genomes. Noda came close in a 2013 studywhen he and his colleagues found that adding a gene from a naturally blue Canterbury bells flower (Campanula medium) into the DNA of chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum morifolium) produced a violet-hued bloom.

Noda says he and his team expected that they would need to manipulate many more genes to get the blue chrysanthemum they produced in their latest study. But to their surprise, adding only one more borrowed gene from the naturally blue butterfly pea plant (Clitoria ternatea) was enough.

Anthocyanins can turn petals red, violet or blue, depending on the pigments structure. Noda and his colleagues found that genes from the Canterbury bells and butterfly pea altered the molecular structure of the anthocyanin in the chrysanthemum. When the modified pigments interacted with compounds called flavone glucosides, the resulting chrysanthemum flowers were blue. The team tested the wavelengths given off by their blossoms in several ways to ensure that the flowers were truly blue.

The quest for blue blooms wouldn't only be applicable to the commercial flower market. Studying how these pigments work could also lead to the sustainable manufacture of artificial pigments, says Silvia Vignolini, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, UK, who has studied themolecular structure of the intensely blue marble berry.

Regardless, producing truly blue flowers is a great achievement and demonstrates that the underlying chemistry required to achieve 'blue' is complex and remains to be fully understood, says Albert.

This article is reproduced with permission and wasfirst publishedon July 26, 2017.

Excerpt from:
True Blue Chrysanthemum Flowers Produced with Genetic Engineering - Scientific American

Papaya trees bask in the evening light on a Hawaiian farm. Enabling crops to resist diseases through genetic modification was a key reason for the survival of Hawaii's papaya industry. Image: Eugene Kim, CC BY 2.0

Which is more disruptive to a plant: genetic engineering (GE) or conventional breeding?

It often surprises people to learn that GEcommonly causes less disruption to plantsthan conventional techniques of breeding. But equally profound is the realisation that the latest GE techniques, coupled with a rapidly expanding ability to analyse massive amounts of genetic material, allow us to make super-modest changes in crop plant genes that will enable farmers to produce more food with fewer adverse environmental impacts. Such super-modest changes are possible with CRISPR-based genome editing, a powerful set of new genetic tools that isleading a revolution in biology.

My interest in GE crops stems from my desire to provide more effective and sustainable plant disease control for farmers worldwide. Diseases often destroy 10 to 15 per cent of potential crop production, resulting inglobal losses of billions of dollars annually.

The risk of disease-related losses provides an incentive to farmers to use disease-control products such as pesticides. One of my strongest areas of expertise is in the use of pesticides for disease control. Pesticides certainly can be useful in farming systems worldwide, but they have significant downsides from a sustainability perspective. Used improperly, they can contaminate foods. They can pose a risk to farm workers. And they must be manufactured, shipped and applied all processes with a measurable environmental footprint. Therefore, I am always seeking to reduce pesticide use by offering farmers more sustainable approaches to disease management.

What follows are examples of how minimal GE changes can be applied to make farming more environmentally friendly by protecting crops from disease. They represent just a small sampling of thebroad landscape of opportunitiesfor enhancing food security and agricultural sustainability that innovations in molecular biology offer today.

Genetically altering crops the way these examples demonstrate creates no cause for concern for plants or people. Mutations occur naturally every time a plant makes a seed; in fact, they are the very foundation of evolution. All of the food we eat has all kinds of mutations, and eating plants with mutations does not cause mutations in us.

A striking example of how a tiny genetic change can make a big difference to plant health is the strategy of knocking out a plant gene that microorganisms can benefit from. Invading microorganisms sometimes hijack certain plant molecules to help themselves infect the plant. A gene that produces such a plant molecule is known as asusceptibility gene.

We can useCRISPR-based genome editingtocreate a targeted mutationin a susceptibility gene. A change of as little as a single nucleotide in the plants genetic material the smallest genetic change possible canconfer disease resistancein a way that is absolutely indistinguishable from natural mutations that can happen spontaneously. Yet if the target gene and mutation site are carefully selected, a one-nucleotide mutation may be enough to achieve an important outcome.

There is a substantial body of research showing proof-of-concept that a knockout of a susceptibility gene can increase resistance in plants to a very wide variety of disease-causing microorganisms. An example that caught my attention pertained topowdery mildew of wheat, because fungicides (pesticides that control fungi) are commonly used against this disease. While this particular genetic knockout is not yet commercialised, I personally would rather eat wheat products from varieties that control disease through genetics than from crops treated with fungicides.

The power of viral snippets

Plant viruses are often difficult to control in susceptible crop varieties. Conventional breeding can help make plants resistant to viruses, but sometimes it is not successful.

Early approaches to engineering virus resistance in plants involved inserting a gene from the virus into the plants genetic material. For example, plant-infecting viruses are surrounded by a protective layer of protein, called the coat protein. The gene for the coat protein of a virus calledpapaya ring spot viruswas inserted into papaya. Through a process called RNAi, this empowers the plant to inactivate the virus when it invades. GE papaya has been a spectacular success, in large partsaving the Hawaiian papaya industry.

Through time, researchers discovered thateven just a very small fragmentfrom one viral gene can stimulate RNAi-based resistance if precisely placed within a specific location in the plants DNA. Even better, they found we canstack resistance genesengineered with extremely modest changes in order to create a plant highly resistant to multiple viruses. This is important because, in the field, crops are often exposed to infection by several viruses.

Does eating this tiny bit of a viral gene sequence concern me? Absolutely not, for many reasons, including:

Tweaking sentry molecules

Microorganisms can often overcome plants biochemical defenses by producing molecules calledeffectorsthat interfere with those defenses. Plants respond by evolving proteins to recognise and disable these effector molecules. These recognition proteins are called R proteins (R standing for resistance). Their job is to recognise the invading effector molecule and trigger additional defenses.

A third interesting approach, then, to help plants resist an invading microorganism is to engineer an R protein so that it recognises effector molecules other than the one it evolved to detect. We can then use CRISPR to supply a plant with the very small amount of DNA needed to empower it to make this protein.

The latest GE techniques, coupled with a rapidly expanding ability to analyse massive amounts of genetic material, allow us to make super-modest changes in crop plant genes that will enable farmers to produce more food with fewer adverse environmental impacts.

This approach, like susceptibility knockouts, is quite feasible, based onpublished research. Commercial implementation will require some willing private- or public-sector entity to do the development work and to face the very substantial and costly challenges of the regulatory process.

The three examples here show that extremely modest engineered changes in plant genetics can result in very important benefits. All three examples involve engineered changes that trigger the natural defenses of the plant. No novel defense mechanisms were introduced in these research projects, a fact that may appeal to some consumers. The wise use of the advanced GE methods illustrated here, as well as others described elsewhere, has the potential to increase the sustainability of our food production systems, particularly given thewell-established safetyof GE crops and their productsfor consumption.

Paul Vincelli is Provosts Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Kentucky. This article is republished from Ensia.

More here:
When genetic engineering is the environmentally friendly choice - eco-business.com