Genetic engineering has applications in medicine, research, industry and agriculture and can be used on a wide range of plants, animals and microorganisms. Bacteria, the first organisms to be genetically modified, can have plasmid DNA inserted containing new genes that code for medicines or enzymes that process food and other substrates Method for creating genetically modified plants. Field analysis of wheat for pesticides. The research paper will look more convincing when there are references to real scientific papers with statistics and experimental results. Breeding new types of Genetically modified foods (GM foods), also known as genetically engineered foods (GE foods), or bioengineered foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic blogger.comc engineering techniques allow for the introduction of new traits as well as greater control over traits when compared to
Genetic engineering - Wikipedia
Try out PMC Labs and tell us what you think. Learn More, research paper on genetic modified plants. Genetically modified or GM plants have attracted a large amount of media attention in recent years and continue to do so.
Despite this, the general public remains largely unaware of what a GM plant actually is or what advantages and disadvantages the technology has to offer, particularly with regard to the range of applications for which they can be used. From the first generation of GM crops, two main areas of concern have emerged, namely risk to the environment and risk to human health.
As GM plants are gradually being introduced into the European Union there is likely to be increasing public concern regarding potential health issues. We consider it important that the medical profession should be aware of the state of the art, and, as they are often the first port of call for a concerned patient, be in a position to provide an informed opinion.
This review will examine how GM plants may impact on human health both directly — through applications targeted at nutrition and enhancement of recombinant medicine production — but also indirectly, through potential effects on the environment.
Finally, it will examine the most important opposition currently facing research paper on genetic modified plants worldwide adoption of this technology: public opinion.
Plants with favourable characteristics have been produced for thousands of years by conventional breeding methods. Desirable traits are selected, combined and propagated by repeated sexual crossings over numerous generations.
This is a long process, taking up to 15 years to produce new varieties. Transgenic GM plants are those that have been genetically modified using recombinant DNA technology. This may be to express a gene that is not native to the plant or to modify endogenous genes. The protein encoded by the gene will confer a particular trait or characteristic to that plant. The technology can be utilized in a number of ways, for example to engineer resistance to abiotic stresses, such as drought, extreme temperature or salinity, and biotic stresses, such as insects and pathogens, that would normally prove detrimental to plant growth or survival.
The technology can also be used to improve the nutritional content of the plant, an application that could be of particular use in the developing world. New-generation GM crops are now also being developed for the production of recombinant medicines and industrial products, such as research paper on genetic modified plants antibodies, vaccines, plastics and biofuels. In contrast, food derived from GM plants is ubiquitous in the USA.
Indeed, many animal feeds used in Europe derived from imported plant material contain GM products. Similarly, GM cotton is widely used in clothing and other products. A number of techniques exist for the production of GM plants. Three aspects of this procedure have raised debate with regard to human health. Transfer of extraneous DNA into the plant genome i. genes other than those being studied. The possibility of increased mutations in GM plants compared to non-GM counterparts due to tissue culture processes used in their production and the rearrangement of DNA around the insertion site of foreign genes.
To facilitate the transformation process, a selectable marker gene conferring, for example, resistance to an antibiotic e. kanamycin, which will kill a research paper on genetic modified plants non-GM plant cellis often co-transferred with the gene of interest to allow discrimination of GM tissue and regeneration of GM plants, research paper on genetic modified plants.
Critics of the technology have stated that there is a risk of the spread of antibiotic resistance to the bacterial population either in the soil or in the human gut after ingestion of GM food, research paper on genetic modified plants.
However, these antibiotic resistance genes were initially isolated from bacteria and are already widespread in the bacterial population. In addition, kanamycin itself has Research paper on genetic modified plants status Generally Regarded As Safe and has been used for over 13 years without any known problems.
Studies have concluded that the probability of transmission of antibiotic resistance from plants to bacteria is extremely low and that the hazard occurring from any such transfer is, at worst, slight. The second aspect of the plant transformation procedure that has been criticized is that unnecessary DNA is transferred into the plant genome as a consequence of the engineering and transfer process.
Finally, research paper on genetic modified plants, it has been claimed that GM plants carry more mutations than their untransformed counterparts as a result of the production method. Latham et al. Consequently, these authors have proposed several recommendations involving improved molecular analysis prior to the future commercialization of GM crops. However, as described in this report, it must be emphasized that GM crops grown to date have been produced under rigorous regulatory frameworks, research paper on genetic modified plants, and have been extensively safety tested prior to commercialization.
Many of these are also rural farmers in developing countries, depending entirely on small-scale agriculture for their own subsistence and to make their living. Specifically, studies are under way to genetically modify plants to increase crop yields, or to directly improve nutritional content.
In the developed world the nutritional content of food items is not of major concern, as individuals have access to a wide variety of foods that will meet all of their nutritional needs. In the developing world, however, this is often not the case, with people often relying on a single staple food crop for their energy intake. Vitamin A deficiency is widespread in the developing world and is estimated to account for the deaths of approximately 2 million children per year.
Inresearch paper on genetic modified plants, Ye et al. Golden Rice was developed for farmers in the poorest countries, and from the beginning, the aim of the scientists was to provide the technology free of charge, which required the negotiation of more research paper on genetic modified plants intellectual and technical property licenses.
Crop yields worldwide are significantly reduced by the action of pathogens, parasites and herbivorous insects. A primary cause of plant loss worldwide is abiotic stress, particularly salinity, drought, and temperature extremes, research paper on genetic modified plants.
Drought and salinity are expected to cause serious salinization of all arable lands by32 requiring the implementation of new technologies to ensure crop survival. Although a number of promising targets have been identified in the production of abiotic stress tolerant GM plants, research remains at the laboratory-based level.
An example is the study by Shou et al. GM crops are tightly regulated by several government bodies. The European Food Safety Authority and each individual member state have detailed the requirements for a full risk assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed. Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects or legal cases related to human healthdespite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries, the USA.
There is little documented evidence that GM crops are potentially toxic. A notorious study claiming that rats fed with GM potatoes expressing the gene for the lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin suffered damage to gut mucosa was published in Is there any a priori reason to believe that GM crops might be harmful when consumed?
The presence of foreign DNA sequences in food per se poses no intrinsic risk to human health. This would occur if the transgene coded for a toxin that was subsequently absorbed systemically by the host.
However, the potential toxicity of the protein expressed in a GM food is an essential component of the safety assessment that has to be performed.
Allergies to non-GM foods such as soft research paper on genetic modified plants fruit, potatoes and soy are widespread. Clearly, new varieties of crops produced by either GM techniques or conventional breeding both have the potential to be allergenic.
Concern surrounding this topic relates to two factors; the possibility that genes from known allergens may be inserted into crops not typically associated with allergenicity and the possibility of creating new, unknown allergens by either inserting novel genes into crops or changing the expression of endogenous proteins.
Assessment of the allergenic potential of compounds is problematic and a number of different bodies have produced guidelines and decision trees to experimentally evaluate allergenic potential. In addition, animal models are used to screen GM foods.
Two examples are frequently quoted regarding GM crop allergenicity:. A project to develop genetically modified peas by adding a protein from beans that conferred resistance to weevils was abandoned after research paper on genetic modified plants was shown that the GM peas caused a lung allergy in mice Soya bean engineered to express a Brazil nut protein was withdrawn from production after it was also found to be allergenic in tests.
Opponents of GM technology often cite these examples as proof that it is inherently unpredictable and dangerous, although another interpretation would be to say that safety testing of GM plants was effective in both cases, having identified allergenic potential before either product was released to market.
It is perhaps a sobering thought, that if conventional plant breeding techniques had been used to achieve the same aims, there would have been no legal requirement for the assessment of allergenicity and the plant varieties could have been commercialized without in vivo testing. However, GM technology might also be used to decrease the levels of allergens present in plants by reducing expression levels of the relevant genes.
For example, research was recently undertaken to identify an allergen in soybeans and remove it using GM technology. There are also a number of uses for plants outside of the food industry, for example in the timber, paper and chemical sectors and increasingly for biofuels. In all cases, non-GM and GM approaches are both being developed. Of significance to the medical field is the use of GM plants for production of recombinant pharmaceuticals. Molecular farming to produce GM plant-derived pharmaceutical proteins PDPs is currently being studied by academic and industrial groups across the world 4.
The first full-size native human recombinant PDP, human serum albumin, was demonstrated in47 and since then antibodies, blood products, hormones and vaccines have all been expressed in plants.
However, a number of molecular farming candidates are in clinical trials, including hepatitis B vaccine produced in potatoes and lettuce, 49 vaccines for heat labile toxin produced by E. coli and Norwalk virus, 5051 human pro-insulin 52 and several monoclonal antibodies.
Using GM plants as a platform for producing pharmaceuticals has many potential advantages over traditional systems. For example, GM plants can produce complex multimeric proteins such as antibodies that cannot be readily expressed by microbial systems. In addition, pharmaceutical production can potentially be on a vast agricultural scale. These include topical application of antibodies and microbicides on mucosal surfaces for the prevention of infection.
Not all applications need be on such a large scale; the hepatitis B vaccine is currently produced in genetically modified yeast, but not enough can be made at an affordable price to meet the demands of developing countries.
Currently, over three million people die every year from vaccine-preventable diseases, the vast majority in the developing world. The current model of profit-motivated pharmaceutical production by companies in the developed world is ineffective in ridding the developing world of disease, research paper on genetic modified plants.
GM plant technology may provide an alternative, as it is relatively low-tech and can be applied locally in the developing world by scientists working in partnership with governments and not-for-profit research funding agencies.
As with all aspects of GM crops, objections have been raised to the use of plants for manufacturing recombinant pharmaceuticals. Of greatest concern is that the pharmaceutical could inadvertently enter the human food chain, research paper on genetic modified plants.
Theoretically, this might happen by uncontrolled dispersal of GM seed or by hybridization with a sexually compatible food crop following escape of GM pollen. Ina company called Prodigene was fined and was severely censured for breaches in safety regulation when, due to inappropriate removal procedures, GM research paper on genetic modified plants expressing a PDP was found to be growing in a soybean crop destined for human food consumption in the next growing cycle.
One proposal is to limit molecular farming to non-food crops, such as tobacco. Whilst feasible, there are significant advantages to the use of food crops for recombinant pharmaceutical production, such as attainment of GRAS status and utilizing well-established agricultural techniques for production. In the next section, the development of techniques to minimize GM gene flow are discussed.
Any adverse effects on the environment through the large-scale growth of GM plants may indirectly affect human health. The following concerns have been expressed with regard to GM plants and the environment:. That GM plants will sexually hybridize with non-GM plants through the transfer of pollen. That the conditions required to grow GM plants will affect local wildlife populations. Inin a highly publicized study, evidence was presented that GM genes from GM maize had, by cross-pollination, contaminated wild maize in Mexico, the global centre for biodiversity of this species.
Research paper on genetic modified plantsa scientific paper was published which claimed that maize engineered to express the insecticidal Bt toxin was harmful to the larvae of the Monarch butterfly, an iconic species in American culture. It is difficult to evaluate the effect of GM crops, or probably more importantly the regime required to grow them, on surrounding wildlife, particularly when considering long-term effects.
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Genetically modified foods (GM foods), also known as genetically engineered foods (GE foods), or bioengineered foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic blogger.comc engineering techniques allow for the introduction of new traits as well as greater control over traits when compared to May 11, · Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are being made by inserting a gene from an external source such as viruses, bacteria, animals or plants into usually unrelated species. Biotechnology has granted us the ability to overcome insurmountable physiological barriers and to exchange genetic materials among all living organisms Apr 23, · Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are creatures in which their genetic make-up has been altered through genetic engineering or biotechnology in hopes of either obtaining favorable traits, eliminating unfavorable traits, or simply gene manipulation. Genetic engineering can be applied to plants, animals, bacteria, fish, and much more
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