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Moving genes from one organism to another has been the backbone of plant breeding. Elite varieties, useful to humans, have come from millennia of careful crossing of plants followed by selection. New technology simply accelerates that process to make rapid gains for food, fiber and fuel.
Moving genes from one organism to another has been the backbone of plant breeding. Elite varieties, useful to humans, have come from millennia of careful crossing of plants followed by selection. New technology simply accelerates that process to make rapid gains for food, fiber and fuel.
Moving genes from one organism to another has been the backbone of plant breeding. Elite varieties, useful to humans, have come from millennia of careful crossing of plants followed by selection. New technology simply accelerates that process to make rapid gains for food, fiber and fuel.
enjoy the sunny drives downstate from Gainesville. As Id progress further south, the landscape became dominated by a truly beautiful sightlush orange groves bearing Floridas iconic fruit. The sea of dark green foliage contrasted the cloudless blue sky, and was punctuated with frequent spots of bright orange. Its scale was amazing, a credit to the farmers that grew them and the plant breeders that coalesced favorable genetics into elite productive trees bearing succulent fruit. It was a combination of plant genetics, orchard management and a magical environment that produced this wonderful sight. Today, the same drive is remarkably different. Many of the groves that stood as a jungle of leaves and frequent fruits now stand as gray skeletal botanical remains. Bare branches extend coldly above untended weeds below, choking out whats left of occasional patches of yellowing leaves and an occasional small green fruit. Devastation is hardly complete. Other groves have remained productive, but only through intensive management and high cost. Even in these cases the leaves are noticeably yellow and the oranges fall easily from the trees to the ground below, unusable. The Florida citrus industry knows this decline as the disease huanlongbing, also known as citrus greening. The disease is a complex web of symptoms caused by a bacterial colonization of the plants vital vascular tissues, blocking nutrient ow, reducing root mass and choking out nutrition to tissues that need it. Infected trees may stand for years before developing symptoms. They also may unknowingly spread the pathogen. The disease travels from tree to tree, vectored by an insect called the Asian citrus psyllid, a small creature with penetrating mouth parts that become contaminated with the bacteria before passing it to the next tree. As of the writing of this article, it is estimated that 70 percent of Floridas trees are infected. The disease has also been identied in California, Texas and Brazil, as well as many other places in the world. Because of its long-latent period, a minor patch of infection is a cold harbinger of a much larger problem to come. To combat the problem plant breeders have sprung to action. There is a worldwide search for resistant trees, trees containing a gene that may make the tree unattractive to the psyllid, genes that could block the bacterium, or perhaps genes that allow the tree to live just ne while infected. If found, such a gene could be bred into elite orange varieties, conferring resistance and slowing, if not ending, the disease. But even if that gene was identied today, it would take years to breed it into existing plants, as each generation of trees only owers after years in the eld. Obtaining the correct combination of good genes against the greening disease and keeping the good genes that support fruit productivity might take decades. A vital industry that produces a healthy and delicious product cannot wait that long. Solutions Exist Disease-resistance genes are well understood in plants and hundreds of them have been characterized. We eat thousands of them and their products in every salad. These genes encode proteins that oppose microbial growth through a wide variety of mechanisms. What if one of these resistance genes could be moved from something like an apple tree, spinach plant or maybe a small weed to citrusand then arrest citrus-greening disease? Such transfers across diverse species by traditional breeding are just not possible, as it is as difcult to cross a grapefruit tree with a banana as it is to cross a mouse with an elephant. But what if that one effective disease- resistance gene, naturally occurring in a food plant we already eat, could be placed into the citrus tree, making it immune, or at least tolerant, to the disease? It could be done, it has Disease-resistance genes are well understood in plants and hundreds of them have been characterized. We eat thousands of them and their products in every salad. These genes encode proteins that oppose microbial growth through a wide variety of mechanisms. What if one of these resistance genes could be moved from something like an apple tree, spinach plant or maybe a small weed to citrusand then arrest citrus-greening disease? GMO Technology is Simply Precision Breeding BY KEVIN M. FOLTA I n need of a solution been done, and the plants seem to thus far do well in greenhouse trials hot with the disease. Here the gene that helps the plant survive the disease was simply plucked from one plant (in this case a gene from spinach) and moved to citrus using a process that has been with us for decadesrecombinant DNA technology. Many other recombinant DNA, or transgenic (commonly referred to as genetically modied organism [GMO]) solutions, are in the works and show promise. While not commercially available, the example from oranges shows how the transfer of a gene from one species to another can work to potentially solve a monumental problem. Moving a gene is what plant breeders have done for thousands of years, shufing the genetic deck with human-mediated hybridizations to try to place a stack of favorable genes into one single genetic background. Every fruit or vegetable you eat today has been genetically remodeled by plant breeders, crossing plants that would typically never hybridize without human intervention and signicant cost. The genetic mixes have been guided by careful hunches, observations and maybe some genetic knowhow, but in general the process has a major element of randomness and is fraught with unknowns. Breeders know they moved the gene of interest if they can follow the trait it confers, but theres no easy way to account for the other negative genetic baggage that travels along, or the good genes that may be lost. Some plant breeders have used chemicals and radiation to damage DNA and induce genetic changes. These practices, and many others that are surprisingly random, dramatic and unnatural, are the foundation of many foods we eat, and have never been questioned for safety. It simply is another way to generate genetic variation, the basis of a new valuable trait. But what if a researcher were to move that one understood gene, rather than a genome full of thousands of unknowns? What if a gene could be moved to an elite variety without losing favorable traits, just gaining the one desired trait? This is the process of creating a transgenic plant, also thought of as a GMO. The GMO is indeed a misnomer, as GMO crops undergo almost no genetic modication relative to the massive restructurings that come with conventional breeding. Making a transgenic plant moves a single understood gene into a new plant, bringing with it the trait of interest. For example, in citrus this might be a gene that makes the plant immune or asympomatic to the greening disease. Recent examples show how the technology can lead to healthier products. In rice, such engineering has been used to introduce a pair of genes that allows rice to produce beta-carotene, the orange-yellow pigments in carrots. Upon consumption, the beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A, and could possibly alleviate disease and blindness caused by vitamin A deciency. This solution remains in development, now moving into productive rice cultivars prior to deployment. The rice will be donated, royalty-free, to small farmers. Another possibility is using a potatos own gene sequence to shut off genes associated with the production of asparagine (an amino acid) in the potato tuber. Potatoes produce a small yet signicant amount of acrylamide when cooked at high temperatures, based on natural chemical reactions with asparagine. Acrylamide is toxic, so decreasing asparagine in the potato tuber could make a more healthful potato. These two examples are not science ction. They are all plants that have been designed to produce desirable products containing an important trait. Many more are being developed and will bring benets to consumers, farmers, the needy or the environment. These benets have been realized already. In 17 years of cultivation, GMO crops have ensured farmer yields and brought great environmental benets. There is no question that farmers appreciate these seeds for the traits they bring, making it protable to produce agronomic crops like corn, canola, soybeans and cotton. Some of these crops are grown with a trait that allows elds to be treated with mild herbicides (namely glyphosate, a compound with the acute toxicity of table salt, replacing less safe herbicides) to combat competing weeds. Others have a gene that leads to the production of a protein that is toxic only to larvae of specic insects, stopping crop damage without insecticidal sprays. These An inspector for the Florida Division of Plant Industry slaps Asian citrus psyllid (the insects responsible for the bacterium that causes citrus greening) from a grapefruit tree. Source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Originally published in the Washington Post online Jan. 12, 2014 genes and their products have been studied for decades and are among the most well-understood genes and gene products in plant biology. However, these plant lines have mostly beneted the farmer and the environment, as farmers achieve desired yields with fewer inputs (less fuel, labor, chemicals), less soil disturbance and certainly less broad-spectrum insecticide. The technology works. Thats why farmers use it. Ninety-some percent of corn, soy, cotton and canola acreage is GMO. Of course, every technology has limitations. The widespread use of herbicide-resistant crops has opened opportunities for resistant weeds to thrive in elds, as their competitors are killed off by herbicide. This selection for surviving weeds has led to widespread invasion of resistant-weed species that will need new technologies to again suppress. Solutions are being developed to slow this evolutionary arms race. In any situation there are benets and risks, and the emergence of resistant weeds is certainly a limitation of the technology. Yet in 17 years of intensive cultivation, these crops have delivered far more benetsthey allow farmers to remain protable, keep food costs low, and provide renewable sources of fuels and bers. Products from these crops appear in 70 percent of grocery store foods, and since their deployment almost two decades ago, there has not been one single case of illness, allergy or death that could be attributed to these plant products. Before marketing they must pass a rigorous safety battery, making them safer than products produced by conventional breeding. Manufacturing Risk, Manufacturing Fear History shows whenever a revolutionary scientic concept or new technology is adopted, there always is some skepticism. Thats healthy, to a point. From the earth in the center of the universe, to explorers sailing off the edge of the earth, to coffee, pasteurization, immunization and in vitro fertilizationjust about every major scientic advance has garnered a collection of detractors and their dissent. Those in opposition try to argue against carefully assembled scientic evidence with opinions founded only on closely held beliefs. However, science tends to nd and reinforce hard truths rather quickly. In all of these cases (and hundreds others) beliefs inconsistent with facts have a hard time competing with hard science. So how to do you inuence hearts and minds if you dont have evidence on your side? You manufacture risk around the technology in question. For some, manufacturing perceived risk has become a full-time job, and a protable one. Animals in general dont like risk. Risk avoidance is a deeply ingrained program that has ensured the forward movement of genes, as, in general, cautious tendencies made it more likely for our ancestors to survive, get interested in a mate and eventually reproduce. To this day, humans maintain a strong aversion to risk and those opposed to GMO technology exploit this inherent tendency. Scaring people with food-based technology is an easy charge. Food has deep cultural meanings: We have plenty of it. We have plenty of choices. Then, the topic is complex; we have little reverence for science education, and the concepts sound somewhere between sterile and alien. Together it is a perfect storm to manipulate fear and increase the perception of risk to achieve a political or protable agenda. This is the state of the discussion of agricultural biotechnology. The technology is not new; it has been in development for more than 30 years and has been successfully deployed for the better part of two decades. The crops grown are among the best tested in the world, and the genes and traits are understood with remarkable resolution. The technology has been rapidly adopted by farmers, and undoubtedly had profound impacts in saving time, labor, fuels and environmental impacts (such as decreased insecticide use). Again, problems like herbicide-resistant weeds cant be ignored, but the risk and benet equation is heavily weighted to the benets. There is no question that these technologies have been safe and effective. There is massive potential in how they may help the farmer, the consumer, the needy and the environment going forward. The central barrier is the anti-scientic beliefs and inuence of activists that manufacture fear to inuence public perceptions. Who do we want dictating public policy around the science of food safety, food security and food technology? Right now it is a rabid activist fringe ranting unabated by scientic opposition. The tide is changing. As science is distorted in the name of political agendas and prots, a traditionally quiet cadre of public-sector scientists is waking up to the reality that those who know nothing are attempting to dictate a scientic conversation. Farmers also realize a vocal minority is attempting to dictate the seeds they can grow and who they can buy them from. Fueled by an Internet where the achievements and reputations of scientists are viewed as equal to rants of self-appointed experts, it is important to let science, evidence and reason prevail in affecting public opinion and shaping public policy. The citrus industry needs a solution. A tree takes years to grow and be productive. A gene from another plant may be a solution. It could save an industry and maintain the consumers pipeline of healthy juice and fresh oranges. One of the barriers separating the problem and a solution is the concern that consumers will question the product, or even worse, boycott and bury it in misinformation. It is sad that public scientists produce a solution that just might work, but its development and deployment will be slowed because of manufactured fear. Citrus is just one case where a biotech solution could have great dividends. We live on a planet where a billion people wake up with empty bellies, where one missing nutrient is the difference between life and death, and where crop plants need to be more prolic with less environmental impact. Major industries need fast solutions. Transgenic technologies simply do what plant breeding has always donemove a gene from one background to another. It is integrating genes in months or years rather than decades. We need to be using every tool to solve todays agricultural challenges and precision breeding through biotechnology will be part of that solution. Kevin M. Folta is the associate professor and chairman of the Horticultural Sciences Department at University of Florida, Gainesville. Reproduced with permission from SupplySide Boardroom Journal, March 2014. 2014 Virgo Publishing. All Rights Reserved. For electronic usage only. Not to be printed in any format.