Topic (2): From cells to organisms

Question 3:
Transgenic recombinant food are a class of genetically modified organism and are generated by cutting one or more genes to an organism's genome. Such food are genetically modified to increase shelf-life, heighten disease resistance and pest resistance. Outline this method used to create transgenic recombinant food. Include diagrams to illustrate the method. Also discuss the possible benefits and risks involved in consuming such transgenic recombinant food.

You may use the following pointers to guide you discussion:

-Can the benefits curb food shortage problems?

-What are the impacts on economic sector of a country?

-Are there any hidden risks/benefits for human health?

-Possible environment hazards?

-Any reported cases of non-genetically modified organism develping increased resistance to pest?

Transgenic recombinant food is mostly grown from a transgenic crop. So to get transgeneic recombinant food, it must first be grown from a transgenic crop and in order to make a transgenic crop, there are five main steps:

step 1)extracting DNA of the plant with the desired characteristics

step 2)clone a gene of interest,

step 3)designing the gene for plant infiltration,

step 4) transformation ( altering the cell to insert DNA into it, methods include :Agrobacterium, Electroporation and Viral transformation)

step 5)plant breeding

Benefits and risk in consuming transgenic recombinant food

The risks are that eating transgenic recombinant food may cause allergies for some people, and ingesting DNA that originated from another source, such as a virus or bacteria might have some side effects.

However, the benefits are that eating such food that are modified to have higher nutrient level, like golden rice can help alleviate symptoms of vitamin A deficiency.

Also, transgenic recombinant food can help to curb food shortage problem if the transgenic crop is modified to produce higher crop yields.

Transgenic recombinant food may also help the economic sector of the country as the country can produce more food to sell to other country if it uses transgenic crop modified to produce higher crop yield.

Although there may be some risks or benefits in consuming transgenic recombinant food as the DNA of the transgenic recombinant food may be from another source such as a virus or bacteria there are very little evidence so far to prove that the DNA from transgenic crops is any different from the DNA ingested from normal crops such that there is any risks or benefits.

However, pollen from transgenic corn, has been suggested to kill the Monarch butterfly larvae. There may be a chance that another transgenic plant produce pollen that may be hazardous to the environment.

Scientist believe that the hybridization of crops nearby weed could cause these weeds to attain resistance to herbicides even if they are not genetically modified. This would make controlling the weed population more difficult.