Question

How are GMOs used in Agriculture, Biotechnology, Medicine

Answer 1

In Agriculture

Engineered crops can dramatically increase per area crop yields and, in some cases, reduce the use of chemical insecticides. For example, the application of wide-spectrum insecticides declined in many areas growing plants, such as potatoes, cotton, and corn, that were endowed with a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which produces a natural insecticide called Bt toxin.

Another example of a GM crop is “golden” rice, which originally was intended for Asia and was genetically modified to produce almost 20 times the beta-carotene of previous varieties. Golden rice was created by modifying the rice genome to include a gene from the daffodilNarcissus pseudonarcissus that produces an enzyme known as phyotene synthase and a gene from the bacterium Erwinia uredovorathat produces an enzyme called phyotene desaturase. The introduction of these genes enabled beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the human liver, to accumulate in the rice endosperm—the edible part of the rice plant—thereby increasing the amount of beta-carotene available for vitamin A synthesis in the body.

Engineered crops can dramatically increase per area crop yields and, in some cases, reduce the use of chemical insecticides. For example, the application of wide-spectrum insecticides declined in many areas growing plants, such as potatoes, cotton, and corn, that were endowed with a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which produces a natural insecticide called Bt toxin.

Another example of a GM crop is “golden” rice, which originally was intended for Asia and was genetically modified to produce almost 20 times the beta-carotene of previous varieties. Golden rice was created by modifying the rice genome to include a gene from the daffodilNarcissus pseudonarcissus that produces an enzyme known as phyotene synthase and a gene from the bacterium Erwinia uredovorathat produces an enzyme called phyotene desaturase. The introduction of these genes enabled beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the human liver, to accumulate in the rice endosperm—the edible part of the rice plant—thereby increasing the amount of beta-carotene available for vitamin A synthesis in the body.

In Medicine

Pharmaceutical products range from recombinant hepatitis B vaccine produced by GM baker’s yeast to injectable insulin (for diabetics) produced in GM Escherichia coli bacteria and to factor VIII (for hemophiliacs) and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA, for heart attack or stroke patients), both of which are produced in GM mammalian cells grown in laboratory culture. Furthermore, GM plants that produce “edible vaccines” are under development. An edible vaccine is an antigenic protein that is produced in the consumable parts of a plant (e.g., fruit) and absorbed into the bloodstream when the parts are eaten. Once absorbed into the body, the protein stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies against the pathogen from which the antigen was derived. Such vaccines could offer a safe, inexpensive, and painless way to provide vaccines, particularly in less-developed regions of the world, where the limited availability of refrigeration and sterile needles has been problematic for some traditional vaccines.

In biotechnology

Some bacteria can produce biodegradable plastics, and the transfer of that ability to microbes that can be easily grown in the laboratory may enable the wide-scale “greening” of the plastics industry. In the early 1990s, Zeneca, a British company, developed a microbially produced biodegradable plastic called Biopol (polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA). The plastic was made with the use of a GM bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha, to convert glucose and a variety of organic acids into a flexible polymer. GMOs endowed with the bacterially encoded ability to metabolize oil and heavy metals may provide efficient bioremediation strategies.