Virginia, USA
August 27, 2012

ISB News Report - August 2012
Table of Contents

REGULATORY NEWS

Myriad Swings for the Fences and Monsanto Swings at Pioneer
Phill Jones
For decades, biotech inventors and company officials have assumed that DNA molecules can be patented. This is not a wild assumption. The US Patent and Trademark Office routinely issues "gene patents," and federal court judges support patent claims to DNA molecules. These decisions reflect a principle of US patent law: Products of nature are not eligible for patent protection unless an inventor introduced a change that results in the creation of a fundamentally new product, one that possesses markedly different characteristics. Isolated DNA molecules are not products of nature, or at least that was the perception that supported the biotech industry.

PLANT RESEARCH

Global Transcriptome Profiling Is a Poor Predictor of the Secondary Effects of Transgenes Influencing Abiotic Stress Tolerance
Zhulong Chan, Patrick J. Bigelow, Wayne Loescher, Rebecca Grumet
Global transcriptome profiling has been suggested as a comprehensive method to examine transgenic plants for secondary effects. Previous studies comparing GE crops to their conventional parent have shown greater transcriptional differences between related conventional cultivars than between the GE plant and its parent. However, these studies were performed with GE crops expressing simpler first generation traits and not altered abiotic stress tolerance. Our recent study compared secondary phenotypic and transcriptomic effects resulting from three different transgenic approaches to confer salt stress tolerance in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana.

Delaying Postharvest Physiological Deterioration in Cassava
Tawanda Zidenga
One of the major constraints facing the large-scale production and commercialization of cassava is the rapid postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD) that occurs within 72 hours following harvest. We have investigated the mechanism of PPD in cassava, and we provide evidence for a causal link between cyanogenesis and the onset of the oxidative burst that triggers PPD. By overexpressing the cyanide-insensitive mitochondrial alternative oxidase (AOX) in cassava roots, we were able to delay the onset of PPD by 10-21 days under greenhouse and field trial conditions.
 

Website: http://www.vt.edu

Published: August 28, 2012