Is Genetic Engineering Harmful to Plants - Essay Example

Is Genetic Engineering Harmful to Plants? Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: 12th September, 2010. Literature Review In order to find out if genetic engineering is harmful to plants, it is important to find out the impacts of genetic engineering on plants. The question that can therefore arise from this is; what are the effects of genetic engineering on plants? Genetic engineering is vast and it is conducted in plants, animals and other organisms. The area of research is therefore not focused on genetic engineering in plants alone but any form of genetic engineering that can cause any effects to the plants. From the results of such a study, it would be easy to determine if genetic engineering is harmful or not. Genetic Engineering Genetic engineering is the use of technology and different methods to manipulate DNA for different purposes. It involves isolation of DNA fragment(s) from a genome of an organism, determination of the base sequence of the fragment or fragments and determination of its function. This helps in a lot of scientific research since the functions of the genes isolated are used to find out how to treat certain medical conditions, how to develop drugs, how to produce drought resistant plants and so on. Because of that, genetic engineering is now applied in forensic analysis of crime samples, genome mapping and sequencing, medical diagnosis, in biotechnology industries and in paternity disputes (Nicholl, 2002). The argument in which genetic engineering technology is based is that the information contained in the genes is a resource that can be manipulated in different ways to achieve several goals. Such goals include; The research on gene structure and function Generation of transgenic animals and plants For medical treatment and diagnosis For generation of important proteins (Nicholl, 2002) This is where the idea of transgenic plants came from and so many plants that are resistant to insects, diseases and those with added nutritional values have been developed. There are however issues about these transgenic plants with some people arguing that transgenic plants are harmful to people’s health and others arguing that genetic modification is harmful to the plants. In some research studies, the results show that plants are affected by genetic modifications made in them with the aim to improve productivity, to add nutritional value or to be resistant to insects or diseases. All these will be discussed in detail in this literature review. The aim of this literature review is to provide information about genetic engineering and plants and about the effects of genetic engineering in plants which will guide the research on finding out if genetic engineering is harmful to plants. It will first briefly discuss genetic engineering in plants and then provide the effects of genetic engineering on plants by discussing results of research studies about effects of genetic engineering on plants. Genetic Engineering in Plants Genetic engineering has led to the development of transgenic plants as stated before and these plants are used in important applications in Agriculture, medicine and industry. Genetic engineering techniques applied in plants has focused on how to produce plants with certain nutrients and plants with quality seeds and fruits. In the case of quality fruits for example, one of the factors considered was the ripening of the fruits which affected storage and transportation. For the fruits to be stored for a longer period of time and be transported without damage, a new fruit which takes longer to ripen was developed. This was done by delaying the expression of genes responsible for ripening (Peña, 2005). Genetic engineering has been used to change the protein composition of certain crops such as the production of methionine rich protein transgenic tobacco, the canola seeds and the expression of albumin gene from sunflower seed in Lupinus Angustifolius that enables production of double the methionine content among so many others (Peña, 2005). All these developments are aimed at providing solutions to the society. The production of protein (methionine) rich crops in crops lacking methionine for example, aimed at avoiding the consumption of both cereal grains and legume seeds which form the main source of proteins for human in order to get both methionine and lysine. Production of vitamin A rich was aimed at making vitamin A sufficient in the Indian society where most people suffered from blindness since rice is a staple food (Peña, 2005). Transgenic plants are also developed to be virus and insect resistant. Agricultural production was much affected by viruses, insects and other pathogens (phytopatogenic fungal and bacterial) that prompted the development of virus, insect and other pathogens resistant plants. Examples of such plants include, tobacco, soybean, cotton, rice, tomato, potato, canola Bt lines which have been developed by use of gene manipulation for the plant genes to express δ-endotoxins from various strains of Bacillus Thuringiensis, a bacteria which produces toxins that kill insects at various stages of life (Peña, 2005). Control of fungal infections on plants has been avoided by development of transgenic plants that express genes encoding enzymes that degrade the major constituents of fungal cell wall. An example is the case of controlling fusarium wilt disease in tomatoes (Peña, 2005). These are just examples of transgenic plants developed to control insects, viruses and other pathogens. Transgenic plants have also been developed to be abiotic stress tolerant. Factors such as salinity, drought and cold were found to cause osmotic stress hence reducing agricultural production. Production of plants resistant to such conditions is one of the ways that biotechnology has helped eliminated reduced production. Transgenic Arabidopsis lines for example are tolerant to cold and salt stress (Peña, 2005). Impacts of Genetic Engineering on Plants (Key points) There are several ways in which genetic engineering can affect plants. The effects can be determined later if they are harmful or not, but when a plant is grown in an area and the effect on soil affects other plants, that is considered an effect on the plants. It is from the effects that the research study will determine if genetic engineering is harmful to or not to plants. Not much research has been conducted concerning the harmful effects of genetic engineering on plants. Most research focus on the general effects of genetic engineering both positive and negative but mostly on the impacts of genetic engineering of plants on human health. Research such as the one focusing on the metabolic pathways of the transgenic rice are just aimed at finding out the impacts of such plants on human health (Davies, 2007). Others are; Najafi’s research which focused on the impact of genetic engineering on food productivity but issues also dealt with included the impacts of such products on human health, Mucci and Houg’s research on finding out the perceptions that Argentines had on genetically modified food concerning their effect on human health (2003) and Saher et al’s research which focused on finding out people’s attitudes towards genetically modified foods (2006). Genetic engineering involves manipulation of the genomes of an organism based on what the scientists or biotechnologists want to achieve. In plant genetic engineering for example, the aim might be to achieve virus resistant plant. A gene responsible for virus resistance has to be identified, its effects studied and inserted into the genome of the plant of interest. According to Smith, there are opposes of genetically modified foods who claim that insertion of such genes can lead to alteration of the normal functioning of other genes of the plant (2007). He refers to it as mutation. This can be true but he also argues that alteration of plant genes does not only occur because of insertion of new genes into the plants (2007). According to Smith, alteration of genes in plants that in turn alters the functions of the plants can occur due to radiation in the fields, infection from viruses and because of the movement of DNA parasites (2007). Another argument that opposes the idea that genetic engineering causes alteration of plant genetic function in some cases is that plants over so many years have had their chromosomes repeatedly disrupted by different structural changes to the DNA and so one alteration cannot be an issue (Smith, 2007). Considering these argument, real proof should be established to determine the real effects of genetic engineering on plants’ genome functions. Genetic engineering kills soil fungi which is important for plant growth. According to Ellstrand, genetically engineered bacteria kill soil fungi and soil fungi are very important for plant growth. Some soil fungi are decomposers which means they mobilize and retain nutrients in the soil, killing such fungi affects the mobilization of nutrients for plant use (Ellstrand, n.d). Some like the Mycorhizal help plants take up phosphorus and others help reduce plants susceptibility to pests, drought and viruses and improve soil structure. Generally, fungi help plants grow healthier and vigorous when they suppress diseases, cycle nutrients and help plants in uptake of some nutrients. When such fungi are killed, their role in the soil is not performed and so the plants susceptibility to pests, viruses and other diseases is increased, the uptake of phosphorus affected as well as distribution of nutrients (Ellstrand, n.d). Genetically engineered seeds are patented for purposes of profit making. This means that the seeds have the same genetic structure. Any attack by a virus, a pest or a bacterium that can attack a crop grown out of this seeds can easily be wiped out due to similarity in structure therefore similarity in their disease fighting mechanism (Mellon & Rissler, 2003). There is also the risk of cross pollination and transfer of unwanted genes to other plants which may be harmful to plants (Harst et al., 1991). There are other factors that affect transgenic plant outcomes. The aims of genetic engineering as indicated earlier are different for example development of virus resistant crops. When a virus resistant crop has been developed, the expectation is that the plant that will grow will be virus resistant depending on the specific virus targeted for control. In some cases however, transplanting of the seeds causes changes in the expression of the genes (Mellon & Rissler, 2003; & Ellstrand, n.d). A gene responsible for expressing viral resistant proteins or enzymes that are involved in killing of the virus may not be expressed. An experiment with tobacco transplants in which the seeds were genetically engineered to be resistant to an herbicide (chlorsulfuron) showed that the plants lost their resistance after transplantation. This shows instability in gene expression in transgenic plants. The effects of instability in gene expression in transgenic plants can be harmful to plants (Ellstrand, n.d). Weather was also found to cause alteration in gene expression in transgenic plants. An example is the case of an experiment where genetic engineering aimed at changing the color of petunias flowers from original white to salmon pink. The experiment succeeded but after some time, the flowers started turning pale with some of them having no areas of coloration at all. This is a clear indication that the function of the gene responsible for producing the intended color has been interfered with or is lost. Still this is an issue of stability in gene expression (Ellstrand, n.d). There are so many advantages of genetic engineering on plants but there are disadvantages too. Some of the disadvantages are the harmful effects of the technology on plants. As described above the effect of genetic engineering on plants results from the alteration of gene function in the plant genome. Research can be done to find out if the alterations are harmful to plants. The case of change of flower color due to loss of gene function for example, affects the researcher’s experiment in developing salmon pink flowers but the other effects on the plant is not shown. Other effects are from the other products of genetic engineering such as genetically engineered bacteria that poisons the soil and in turn affects the plant growth and killing of soil fungi that also affects plant growth (Ellstrand, n.d). References Davies, K.M. (2007), Genetic Modification of Plant Metabolism For Human Health Benefits, Journal of Mutation Research, 622, (1-2), Pp. 122–137. Ellstrand, N., n.d., Genetic Engineering: Too Good to go. A Report. Evenhuis, A. and Zadoks, J. C., 1991, Possible Hazards To Wild Plants Of Growing Transgenic Plants. A Contribution To Risk Analysis, Euphytica, 55(1), Pp. 81-84. Habibi-Najafi, M.B. (2006), Food Biotechnology and its Impact on Our Food Supply, Global Journal of Biotechnology & Biochemistry, 1(1), Pp. 22-27. Harst, M., Cobanov, B. A., Hausmann, L., Eibach, R., and Töpfer, R., 2009, Evaluation of Pollen Dispersal And Cross Pollination Using Transgenic Grapevine Plants. Journal of Enviromental Biosafety Research. 8(2):87-99. Mellon, M. and Rissler, J., 2003, Environmental Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops: Recent Experiences. A Paper Presented at a ‘Gentically Modified Foods Conference’ in Copenhagen, Denmark by Margaret Mellon on June 12th to 13th 2003. Union of Concerned Scientists. Mucci, A. and Hough, G. (2003), Perceptions of genetically modified foods by consumers in Argentina, Journal of Food Quality and Preference, 15, Pp. 43–51. Nicholl, D. S. T., 2002, An Introduction To Genetic Engineering, 2nd Ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peña, L., 2005, Transgenic Plants: Methods And Protocols, New Jersey, US: Humana Press. Saher, M., Lindeman, M. And Hursti, U.K.K. (2006), ‘Research Report: Attitudes Towards Genetically Modified And Organic Foods’, Appetite, 46, 324–331. Smith, J., 2007, Genetic Roulette, The Documented Health Risks Of Genetically Engineered Foods: Any DNA Insertion Can Cause A Mutation. Portland, ME: Yes! Books. Read More