Jun 3, 2010 | | | 11:50 pm |
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Plants can suffer from infections caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, and other pathogens. Various high-tech approaches have been proposed to protect plants from harmful afflictions. To date, most interest has been focused on virus resistant transgenic plants, but using biotechnology to confer resistance to fungi, bacteria, or nematodes has also been gaining attention.
Fungus resistant GM plantsGenetic engineering enables new ways of managing fungal infections. Several approaches have been taken:
No commercial cultivars available today use these approaches.
The most effective ways of managing viruses are cultural controls (e.g. removing diseased plants) and using resistant cultivars. Although conventional methods of breeding have been able to provide some virus resistant or tolerant cultivars, they are not available for most corps. Virus resistant GM plantsIn some cases, biotechnology can be used to make virus resistant crops. The most common way of doing this is by giving a plant a viral gene encoding the virus' 'coat protein'. The plant can then produce this viral protein before the virus infects the plant. If the virus arrives, it is not able to reproduce. The explanation for this is called cosuppression. The plant has ways of knowing that the viral coat protein should not be produced, and it has ways of eventually shutting down the protein's expression. When the virus tries to infect the plant, the production of its essential coat protein is already blocked. All genetically modified virus resistant plants on the market (e.g. papayas and squash) have coat protein mediated resistance. It may also be possible to confer resistance by taking a resistance gene naturally found in one plant and then transferring it to an important crop.
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