Transgenic Plants and Animals
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Transcript of Transgenic Plants and Animals
Transgenic Plants and AnimalsGenetically modified organism in environment
Contents:• What are transgenic plants and animals?
• Methodology
• Effect on environment
• Advantages and Risks
• Researches on GMOs
• Controversy
Transgenic plants and animals
• Transgenic plants are plants that have been genetically engineered, a breeding approach that uses recombinant DNA techniques to create plants with new characteristics.
• A transgenic animal is one that carries a foreign gene that has been inserted into its genome. The foreign gene is constructed using recombinant DNA methodology.
Advantages In plants:
Increased and improved nutrients
Longer shelf life, less waste
Enhanced taste and quality
Reduced maturation time
Higher yielding crops, more efficient use of land
Higher yielding crops, more efficient use of land
Improved resistance to disease or illness
Increased food security for growing populations and growth challenges
Advantages
In animals:
Used in biomedical science--cancer research; immunology; developmental biology; gene expression and regulation; and models for human genetic diseases such as muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell anemia.
Potential applications for transgenic animals include manipulation of milk composition, growth, disease resistance, reproductive performance, and production of pharmaceutical proteins by livestock.
Risk associated with Genetic Modification
Safety – Potential human health implications.
– Potential environmental impact.
Ethics – “Playing God”
– Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species.
Labeling – Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., Canada and the United
States).
– Mixing GM crops with non-GM confounds labeling attempts.
Risk associated with Genetic Modification
Biodiversity
• Addition of Bt gene into plants including corn, potatoes and cotton to increase resistance to plants
• Bt gene obtained from Bacillus thuringiensis (a soil bacterium that produces a natural insecticide)
• Problem: plants producing Bt toxin are releasing toxin in pollen
• Pollen from a Bt plant was dusted on to milkweed:
- only 56% of young monarch butterfly larvae lived
- whereas pollen from organic plants dusted on the milkweed produced a survival rate of 100%.
Approximately half of the monarch butterfly population live in the “corn belt” of the USA
Who Uses this technology?
The Countries that Grow 99% of the World's Transgenic Crops
69%
23%
7% 1%
USA
Argentina
Canada
China
Researches on GMOs• Transgenic animals are used as experimental models to
perform phenotypic and for testing in biomedical research.
• Genetically animals are becoming more vital to the discovery and development of cures and treatments for many serious diseases.
• By altering the DNA or transferring DNA to an animal, we can develop certain proteins that may be used in medical treatment.
• Stable expressions of human proteins have been developed in many animals, including sheep, pigs, and rats.
• Human-alpha-1-antitrypsin,which has been tested in sheep and is used in treating humans with this deficiency and transgenic pigs with human-histo-compatibility have been studied in the hopes that the organs will be suitable for transplant with less chances of rejection.
Controversy
• There are controversies around GMOs on several levels, including whether making them is ethical, whether food produced with them is safe, whether such food should be labeled and if so how, whether agricultural biotech is needed to address world hunger now or in the future, and more specifically to GM crops—intellectual property and market dynamics; environmental effects of GM crops; and GM crops' role in industrial agricultural more generally.
Conclusion
Genetic modification:
or
References
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042415963
• http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/irspsm91/transfor.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism#Research_use
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism#Controversy