University of Tennessee Researchers Discover Marker to Help GM Crops
Researchers at the University of Tennessee have discovered a plant gene marker that may revolutionize genetically modified crops (UT Researchers studying Genetically Modified Crops, Memphis Business Journal, 8/22/05).
The researchers, Mentewab Ayalew, a plant scientist at the University of Tennessee, and Neal Stewart, the Racheff Chair of Excellence in Plant Molecular Genetics at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, found a plant-based genetic marker that shows resistance to specific antibiotics. Their findings are published in the September 2005 issue of Nature Biotechnology, a peer review journal.
Since the 1980s, researchers have been pairing genes for desirable plant traits with bacterial markers and inserting them into target plants. According to research, genetically modifying plants usually has a rather low success rate as researchers need to be able to select plants which have successfully absorbed the introduced gene from those which have not. Traditionally, this has been done by giving, alongside the desired gene, a gene which makes the plants resistant to an antibiotic. Growing the plants in soil containing the antibiotic provides an easy way to sort them. Those plants that have not absorbed the introduced genetic material will be poisoned by the antibiotic. The antibiotic gene is referred to as the “marker” because it “marks out” the successes from the failures.
According to the findings, the researchers at the University of Tennessee used a gene in their study from a plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, the most widely investigated plant in science. The researchers then inserted the gene into a tobacco plant. The inserted gene increased the production of a protein called an ATP binding cassette (ABC) and made the plants kanamycin-resistant.
Most genetically modified plants already contain a gene for antibiotic resistance, but concerns and fears have been raised that the antibiotic resistant gene could transfer to bacteria, making them immune to common drugs. There are also fears that an increase in antibiotic resistance in bacteria could lead to some human health risks.
The researchers say that because their genetic marker originates from a plant, it is highly unlikely that any horizontal gene transfer would result in antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The development of this new gene marker for genetically modified plants and crops is a great step toward the acceptance of such products. Although there have been concerns over the safety of genetically modified crops among the chief objections to their production and sale, I believe the discovery will add some influence to the debate over genetically modified foods. This new discovery could also be of value to researchers around the world as they develop new technologies in the ever-changing world of biotechnology.
