Scientists Witness Migration of GM Cell Material

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Scientists Witness Migration Of GM Cell Material

By Steve Connor Science Editor

The Independent - UK

2-5-3

 

A technique for producing " environmentally friendly " GM crops has

been called into question by a study showing how easily alien genes

can be transferred around a plant.

 

Scientists have found that genes can jump from one region of a plant

cell to another, making more likely the prospect of an introduced

gene contaminating the plant's pollen and escaping into the wild.

 

The research, led by Jeremy Timmis of Adelaide University in

Australia, focused on the DNA of chloroplasts ñ the photosynthetic

structures inside a plant cell ñ which lie outside a plant's

nucleus.

 

Some researchers have suggested that by modifying the DNA of

chloroplasts, GM crops might be created with beneficial traits that

cannot be transferred to the plant's pollen and be released into the

wild. Pollen is made using DNA from the cell's nucleus.

 

But Dr Timmis has shown in a study published in the journal Nature

that genes introduced into the DNA of a chloroplast can indeed jump

into the chromosome of the cell's nucleus. By modifying the genes of

chloroplasts, therefore, the theoretical possibility exists to

generate GM pollen that could cross-fertilise with related species

of plants, producing GM wild flowers or " superweeds " resistant to

weedkiller.

 

Dr Timmis's team used a gene that confers resistance to an

antibiotic as a " marker " , to see how frequently this alien DNA could

move from the chloroplast to the nucleus of a tobacco plant. They

found DNA is transferred at a frequency of one in approximately

16,000 tobacco pollen grains.

 

Peter Riley, of Friends of the Earth, said: " This research suggests

that this is a bit of a shock to scientists. They didn't expect the

genes to jump from chloroplast to nucleus so readily. It underlines

the fact that we must know more about plant genetics before we start

manipulating the DNA of crops. "

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?

story=375935