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They've developed rice with a human gene in it! I find the concept disgusting! What do you think?

Quote:

Rice with a Human Touch: Engineered grain uses gene from people to protect against herbicides
Ben Harder

A human gene that Japanese researchers have inserted into rice enables the plant to break down a portfolio of chemicals now used on farms to kill weeds. The unusual breadth of that herbicide resistance could circumvent a major shortcoming of existing genetically engineered crops and also open new avenues for cleaning up contaminated soils.

Some scientists, however, are concerned that weeds growing with the rice could eventually acquire the human gene and become herbicide-resistant superweeds.

The herbicide resistance of many crops, including much of U.S. soy and cotton, results from genetic elements that scientists have transferred from other species. These engineered plants can tolerate powerful weed-control chemicals. To date, most plants tweaked this way are resistant to only one type of chemical, so farmers must use both the herbicide-resistant crop and the matching herbicide to keep weeds at bay without killing the plants they want to harvest.

However, weeds exposed to the same herbicide, season after season, are more apt to develop chemical resistance than are weeds treated with alternating herbicides, says molecular biologist Sharon L. Doty of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Plants and animals make numerous enzymes, called cytochrome P450s, that break down various harmful chemicals. One such human enzyme, CYP2B6, disables more than a dozen herbicides, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. For some of these compounds, CYP2B6 works better than natural rice enzymes do.

So, plant biologist Sakiko Hirose of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan, and her colleagues added to rice seeds the human gene that makes CYP2B6.

They found that the engineered and traditional plants grew similarly in the presence of any of 4 herbicides and that the engineered plants were healthier in tests of 13 other herbicides, including one called metolachlor.

In additional experiments, the scientists determined that the transgenic plants disarm metolachlor more rapidly than the other plants do. After 3 days growing in a solution containing metolachlor, transgenic seedlings contained only 0.2 percent of the herbicide initially present, whereas standard rice contained 4 percent.

Moreover, almost none of the original metolachlor remained in the transgenic plant's growth medium, while one-quarter of the herbicide persisted in media hosting standard plants, the researchers report in an upcoming Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The Japanese team's approach to genetic engineering could produce crops tolerant of a rotating regimen of herbicides, a practice that should delay the emergence of herbicide resistance in agricultural weeds, Doty says.

On the other hand, she adds, "strict measures" must be taken to confine the gene for CYP2B6 to the desired crops. "If the transgene is transferred to weeds, then the weeds will be resistant to a very broad spectrum of herbicides," Doty notes.

Beyond potentially giving crops an edge over weeds, the new technique could make plants more useful in laundering environmental contaminants, including herbicides used on cropland. Says Richard Meilan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., "It might allow us to grow more rice efficiently and go light on the environment at the same time."

I got this from Science News, so the link won't do any good unless you have a subscription.

Well, Mariahobbit, it's not so much the human genes as the engineering crops to be resistant to herbicides and pesticides, so that farmers can increase the amounts of pesticides they use. More poisons for our air, water and land!

I think it's pretty cool.

Question to the knowledgeable biologists around: How would the rice be able to pass this new gene to other weeds? Are different species of plant capable of interchange genetic material simply by being around each other?

I find the concept disgusting, too. Or as Sam might say, 'unnatural.'

Soon, they will try to force-feed this rice to us (pun intended) with the excuse that more crops will mean less hungre people around. As if the problem of world famine is the result of not enough food to go around.

Sorry, Voyargas, but I do not share your optimism. I agre with Ellienor and Maria . I don't see anything positive coming out of this.

It's bad enough remembering birthdays as it is without having to send out cards to a whole field of carrots too.

Ugh, the idea of that is so creepy...

yo, I know absolutely nothing about rice plants themselves... but if cross pollenation occured between the rice plant and another plant or weed, there's a chance that the hybrid could contain the gene. Then if that got passed on further - you get your superweed.

Increased pesticide use aside, I don't know why this pushes my "Ewwwwww!" button so hard. Maybe it's because of a short sci fi story I read somewhere once where geneticists had developed the perfect human food, an animal that converted grass to meat with amazingly high efficiency, and was very nutritious and delicious. On closer inspection, they found the animal contained significant amounts of human DNA, and during a site inspection found one of the animals speaking English, and was crying and protesting as it was led to the slaughter house.

Where do you draw the line about human DNA in livestock or crops?

They could turn on you as well. I remember some weird story where some plants upped and walked to surround this guy's home. He got flooded out too.

Well, the human sequence has got to be a tiny fraction of the rice plant's DNA. It's not as if they've put in genes for arms or faces or organs. It's probably genes coding for a single protein or set of proteins that let the rice plant metabolize (break down) pesticides. It's like editing a new paragraph into a long novel. You can't change one book into another by doing that.

If they messed with any significant amount of an organism's DNA, the most likely outcome would be that the organism would not be viable.

Primula_Baggins wrote:

If they messed with any significant amount of an organism's DNA, the most likely outcome would be that the organism would not be viable.

Yeah, like grains of rice with eyeballs!

Yes, imagine a whole bowlful looking up at you:

That looks more like the new breed of human corn. Very tasty.

ellienor wrote:

Well, Mariahobbit, it's not so much the human genes as the engineering crops to be resistant to herbicides and pesticides, so that farmers can increase the amounts of pesticides they use. More poisons for our air, water and land!

Took the words right of my mouth.

One single gene does not a human make.

Yovi, I wish I could answer your question, but plant genetics are too complicated for me. Pretty much anything that's got more than one cell is too complicated for me. :/ All I can say is horizontal gene transfer (a gene jumping from species to species as opposed to arising among descendants) does occur and no one really knows how it works. Viruses may be involved though. But it's not something I ever cared enough about to really get into. RNA chemistry is much more fun.

No one will ever be able to force feed me rice. They won't need to.