GM Crops

Low transformation frequencies limit the use of plastid transformation in potato and other crops. Hence, a breakthrough in chloroplast genetic engineering of agronomically important species is a highly desirable goal. We succeeded in achieving potato transformation efficiency up to one shoot every bombardment using a modified regeneration procedure and novel vectors containing potato flanking sequences for transgene integration by homologous recombination in the Large Single Copy region of the plastome. Vector delivery was performed by the biolistic approach...

An efficient detection system for trait validation and screening of GMOs is a much sought after procedure, which could also help in regulatory compliance. Currently, in India, a number of cry2Ab transgene carrying GM crops are undergoing field trial i.e., MON15985 cotton, Bt rice, Bt okra, Bt corn, Bt brinjal, Bt potato and Bt tomato. In this study, we report a qualitative assay for detection for cry2Ab (326 bp). Further, the amplification compatibility with promoter, p35S (195 bp), terminator, t-nos (180 bp) and marker gene, npt II ( 215 bp) was also confirmed using Bt cotton event MON15985 as reference material...

Complex groups of proteins determine the unique functional properties of wheat flour and are sometimes responsible for food intolerances and allergies in individuals that consume wheat products. Transgenic approaches can be used to explore the functions of different flour proteins, but are limited to the few wheat cultivars that can be transformed and also by the lack of detailed information about genes and proteins expressed in grain from those cultivars. The US bread wheat Butte 86 has been extensively characterized and a comprehensive proteome map was developed in which flour proteins were distinguished by mass spectrometry and associated with specific gene sequences...

Ectoine is a common compatible solute in halophilic bacteria. Its biosynthesis originates from L-aspartate β-semialdehyde and requires three enzymes: L-2, 4-diaminobutyric acid aminotransferase (gene: ect B), L-2,4-diaminobutyric acid acetyl transferase (gene: ect A) and L-ectoine synthase (gene: ect C). Genetically engineered tomato plants expressing the three H. elongata genes (ectA, ectB, and ectC) generated showed no phenotypic abnormality. Expression of the ectoine biosynthetic genes was detected in the T3 transgenic plants by Northern blot analysis...

This work was carried out in order to develop early flowering barley lines. These lines will be useful to producers by enabling multiple crops within a single season and increasing production. Transgenic barley plants containing the natural early flowering time AtCRY2 allele from the Cape Verde Island (Cvi) ecotype of Arabidopsis have been generated using biolistic transformation. Immature embryo derived calli of two commercially important barley cultivars (El-Dwaser and El-Taif), were transformed using a pCAMBIA-2300 plasmid harboring a genomic fragment containing the AtCRY2-Cvi allele...

This paper updates the assessment of the impact commercialised agricultural biotechnology is having on global agriculture from an environmental perspective. It focuses on the impact of changes in pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions arising from the use of biotech crops. The technology has reduced pesticide spraying by 393 million kg (-8.7%) and, as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops (as measured by the indicator the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ)) by 17...

Plum pox virus (PPV), a Potyvirus, is the causal agent of sharka, the most detrimental viral disease affecting stone fruit trees. This review focuses on research carried out to obtain PPV- resistant transgenic plants and on how biotechnological strategies evolved in light of the scientific advances made during the last several years. Successful RNA silencing strategies that confer high level of resistance to strains of PPV have been developed and tested under laboratory and greenhouse conditions. Moreover, field tests showed that transgene-mediated RNA silencing was effective in protecting plum plants against aphid-mediated PPV infection...

The potential impact of GM crops on biodiversity has been a topic of interest both in general as well as specifically in the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Agricultural biodiversity has been defined at levels from genes to ecosystems that are involved or impacted by agricultural production (www.cbd.int/agro/whatis.shtml). After fifteen years of commercial cultivation, a substantial body of literature now exists addressing the potential impacts of GM crops on the environment. This review takes a biodiversity lens to this literature, considering the impacts at three levels: the crop, farm and landscape scales...

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Plant defensins are small cysteine-rich peptides which belong to a group of pathogenasis related defense mechanism proteins. The proteins inhibit the growth of a broad range of microbes and are highly stable under extreme environmental stresses. Tomato cultivation is affected by fungal disease such as Fusarium wilt. In order to overcome fungal damages, transgenic tomato plants expressing the Medicago sativa defensin gene MsDef1 under the control of the CaMV 35S promoter were developed. The Fusarium-susceptible tomato (Lycobersicum esculentum Mill) cultivar CastleRock was used for transformation to acquire fungal resistance...

Sweet corn, Zea mays L., transformed to express a novel vegetative insecticidal protein, Vip3A (event MIR162, Syngenta Seeds, Inc..), produced by the bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), was evaluated over four field seasons in Maryland and two field seasons in Minnesota for efficacy against the corn earworm, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie). Hybrids expressing the Vip3A protein and pyramided in hybrids also expressing the Cry1Ab Bt protein (event Bt11, ATTRIBUTE(®), Syngenta Seeds, Inc.) were compared to hybrids expressing only Cry1Ab or to genetically similar non-Bt hybrids each year...

A highly precise molecular marker technique, Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) was used to characterize the changes in genomic structure occurred due to introduction of foreign gene and/ or due to the induced tissue culture stress during the development of various transgenic Bt rice populations. The transgenic rice plants having complex to simple Bt gene and selectable marker gene organizations were selected from the six insect resistant Bt rice lines. Our results clearly demonstrate that integration pattern, extent of rearrangement of foreign DNA and method of transformation may influence the genomic changes in transgenic rice populations...

We generated transplastomic lettuce plants expressing cyanobacterial fructose-1,6-/sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase (FBP/SBPase) in chloroplasts. Their photosynthetic capacity and productivity were increased 1.3-fold and 1.6-fold, respectively, compared with control plants transformed with pRL200, indicating that the introduction of the enzyme affects the photosynthetic capacity and growth of lettuce plants at ambient CO(2) levels (360 ppm).

The transformation of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) through Agrobacterium tumefaciens is still far from being routine, particularly when it comes to commercial varieties. In the present paper, we present an efficient and simple protocol for leaf disc transformation of three Vietnamese tomato cultivars (DM8, MTS, FM372C) by comparing shoot regeneration media for expanding leaves and examining different parameters of inoculation, co-culture and selection conditions. The present transformation method requires neither feeder layers of cell suspension cultures nor pre-culture...

Event DAS-40278-9 maize expresses the aryloxyalkanoate dioxygenase-1 enzyme, which was originally identified in the soil bacterium Sphingobium herbicidovorans. This enzyme degrades 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and aryloxyphenoxypropionate herbicides (e.g., haloxyfop, cyhalofop, quizalofop, etc.); therefore, plants that contain this enzyme are tolerant to these herbicides. We employed the substantial equivalence approach to investigate the compositional safety of event DAS-40278-9 maize. A total of 82 different compositional analyses were conducted to evaluate the equivalence of event DAS-40278-9 and conventional maize...

The stem borer, Chilo agamemnon Bles., is the most serious insect pest in rice fields of the Egyptian Nile Delta. To induce rice plant resistance to Chilo agamemnon, the cry1Ia5 gene was introduced to rice plants (Oryza sativa L.). The integration of the cry1Ia5 gene into the plant genome was confirmed using PCR and Southern blot analyses. The obtained plantlets were transferred to the greenhouse until seeds were collected. Northern blot analysis of the T1 plants confirmed the expression of the cry1Ia5 gene...

Transgenic science and technology are fundamental to the state-of-art plant molecular genetics and crop improvement. The new generation of technology endeavors to introduce genes 'stably' into 'site-specific' locations and in 'single copy' without the integration of extraneous vector 'backbone' sequences or 'selectable markers'. Numerous plant transformation technologies have developed with the aim of achieving these objectives. Here we discuss some of these technologies, which can push the development of 'better transgenic plants with desirable characters only'...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.