Information Systems for Biotechnology (ISB) News Report
August 2005
Article Summaries (links are to the ISB News Report website)
Partial table of contents

RISK ASSESSMENT

Herbicide resistant crops may promote herbicide tolerance in weeds
Kelly M. Paulson

Sloppy semantics have eclipsed an important distinction between tolerance and resistance recognized by evolutionary biologists. Both resistant and tolerant organisms will enjoy higher fitness than their non-resistant or non-tolerant counterparts; however, to understand the dynamics of tolerant organisms over time it is important to understand the different means by which this common ending is reached.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/aug0501.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.htm#aug0501

PLANT RESEARCH NEWS

Towards 'stacked' traits - Prospects for multi-gene manipulation in plants
Claire Halpin

In 2004, only 9% of commercially-grown GM crops contained 'stacked' or 'pyramided' traits developed by introducing two or more novel genes. However, at the research level, a variety of conventional and more novel methods for multi-gene manipulation are currently being developed or tested, presenting the hopeful prospect of soon overcoming one of the major challenges currently facing plant biotechnology.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/aug0502.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.htm#aug0502

Sustainable and durable insect pest resistance in transgenic crops
Paul Christou

One potential problem with Bt-based insecticides is that they are very widely used, with up to 90% of microbiological insect control products based on topically-applied Bt toxins. For this reason, there is concern that insects might evolve resistance to Bt toxins and indeed the diamondback moth has evolved resistance in some open field populations, while laboratory selection experiments with other insect pests have shown that recessive mutant alleles can confer resistance to multiple Bt toxins.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/aug0503.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.htm#aug0503

A wide cross-tolerance of transgenic rice containing human CYP2B6 to various classes of herbicides
Sakiko Hirose and Hiroyuki Kawahigashi

Over 290 biotypes of herbicide tolerant weeds have been reported in agricultural fields and gardens worldwide. In our study, we demonstrated that transgenic rice expressing human CYP2B6 under the control of CaMV 35S showed strong herbicide tolerance that resulted from the detoxification of several types of herbicides by the CYP2B6.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/aug0504.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.htm#aug0504

Non-agrobacterial species for gene transfer to plants
P. Janaki Krishna

Researchers are now attempting to use other Agrobacteria-related species, such as Sinorhizobium and Mesorhizobium, to augment gene transfer techniques. A research team from CAMBIA has investigated whether a non-Agrobacterial species of bacteria can competently transfer genes in plants.

Complete article:
pdf: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/artspdf/aug0505.pdf
web: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.htm#aug0505
 

The material in this News Report is compiled by NBIAP's Information Systems for Biotechnology, a joint project of USDA/CSREES and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or Virginia Tech.

The entire news report is available in these formats:
PDF version: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/aug05.pdf 
Web version: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2005/news05.aug.html