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