PLant biotech

Question 1

What do we use plants for?

Answer 1

Protein
Starch
Cell walls
oils

Question 2

What do we use starch for?

Answer 2

Food thickener
Starch covers paper surface to stop ink from running and blotting.
Starch acts as lubricant in latex gloves - some people are allergic to latex and starch helps carry over the allergy causing substance.
Oil drilling mud, keeps rock particles suspended and drilling bit in lubricate to allow for continued drilling.
Bioethanol, consists of glucose molecules which can be broken up during fermentation and used to make fuel, only problem is that people eat starch.
Biodegradable plastics, not as clear as ‘normal’ plastics.

Question 3

What do we use oils for?

Answer 3

Eat and cook with them- avo, canola, vegetable
To relax - essential oils from aromatic plants
Convert it to fuel - mix with alcohols which produces bio-deisel, butt not economically viable to make easier to produce pure deisel.

Question 4

Can we use algea to make bio-deisel?

Answer 4

Produce high amounts of oil
grows in saltwater - Doenst need soil
uses available light wavelengths
but it is too expensive

Question 5

What can we use protein for?

Answer 5

Need amino acids such as methionine, lysine and tryptophan.
CYMMYT protein maize contains increased amounts of lysina nd tryptophan
Golden rice contains a precursor for vitamin A
Plants can also be used as bioreactors for important proteins (better than bacteria).
Antibodies can be made in plants by taking the animal gene for the antibody and transforming it into plants = proteins fold correctly not the case for microbes
Vaccines can be made in plants by expressing an epitope from a disease causing organism = higher yields.

Question 6

What can we use cell walls for?

Answer 6

Paper made from cellulose
Linen made form flax
Can be used to make second gen bio fuels.

Question 7

First gen vs. second gen biofuels?

Answer 7

first gen:
Uses land that we could grow food on
not scaleable
low yields and viability

second gen:
Non-food biomass
Can grow on marginal lands
Vast range of biomass makes it scalable
HIgher yields and is more viable.

Question 8

Why are cell walls more difficult to ferment?

Answer 8

Contains lignin that hols the microfibrils together in plant walls. but when you remove lignin from a plant the plant will produce more cellulose to compensate for the lignin loss.

Question 9

Plant metabolites

Answer 9

strach,oil, cell wall, and proteins are examples of high-volume low-price commodities.
Plants also produce low-volume, high-priced commodities = pepper, vanilla, asprin, taxol

Question 10

What is the significance of taxol?

Answer 10

mitotic inhibitor used in breast cancer treatment.
Pacific yew = slowest growing plant in the world
very very low yields would take 60 tress to treat one person
therefore second gen plant bioreactors are used.

Question 11

Plant cell bioreactors?

Answer 11

Can produce substances such as taxol in callus cultures or in hairy root cultures.

Question 12

Advantages of GM crops?

Answer 12

INcreased the yields of crops.
Reduced the amount of herbicides and insecticides used.
Less fungal infection-related toxins.

Question 13

What is a meta-study?

Answer 13

a study about studies

Question 14

What are some applications of GM crops?

Answer 14

Herbicide resitant
Insect resistant
DRought resistant
IMproved bioethanol production
Non-browning apples
PLantibody production

Question 15

How are plants transformed?

Answer 15

Make callus
Trans DNA preparation
Plant transformation
Selection
Plant regeneration
Identifying plants where the transgene is effective.

Question 16

How do we make a callus?

Answer 16

plants have many tissues with specialised, differentiated cells.
Callus - differentiated cells are totipotent.
decontaminated plant material is placed onto media containing hormones.
The ratio of cytokinin yo auxin will affect how the plant cells respond - combining cytokynins and auxins confuses the plant and it forms a plant mass.

Question 17

How do we do trans DNA preparation?

Answer 17

done in bacteria and helps identify transformed cells.
Sense, antisense and RNAi

Question 18

How do we transform plants?

Answer 18

Indirect Transformation = Agrobacterium tumerfacians. Take tDNA and disformed it, put the gene of interest onto tDNA the gene is implanted between the left and right border.
Direct transformation = bolistics, shoot tungsten or gold bullets with DNA into plant cells.

Question 19

How do we select the transformed genes?

Answer 19

selectable marker gene helps identify the transformed cell. can provide resistance to antibiotics, herbicides, high salinity, toxic sugar etc

Question 20

HOw do we regenerate plants?

Answer 20

regeneration after transformation using a selectable marker.

Hardening off - allows plants to be weaned into a ‘normal” environment where they control their own water intake.

Question 21

How do we identify the transgene plants?

Answer 21

plant transformation is entirely random, gene can be incorporated anywhere in the genome.
Need to have a control and a plant with genes to reference to, which allows us to look at the amounts of the transgene expression.

Question 22

What is totipotency?

Answer 22

Cells can regenerate into any plant cell

Question 23

What is transformation?

Answer 23

the (non-sexual) direct transfer of genetic material into a living cell

Question 24

GM plant permits in south africa?

Answer 24

differnet kinds of permits released for transgenic crops, crops coming into the country or leaving, field trials.

Question 25

How do we get the permits for transgenic crops?

Answer 25

Component, tests, functionallity equavalent all included in a document that is submitted to the GM registrar.

Question 26

What does the GM registraar look at in transgenic crops?

Answer 26

Allergenicity
Toxicity
Chnages in composition
Yields

transgenic crops can only be released if there is only 1 copy of the transgene in it, to inhibit the interactions between transgenes. Need to show the exact sequence on the trans-gene.

Question 27

Do plants undergo GM testing?

Answer 27

yes, plants can change when planted or things can surface when commercially used.
Lenape potato almost reached the market but was found to contain toxic levels of solanine.