Genetic Engineering-A Potential Solution

Genetic Engineering-A Potential solution

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) or Transgenic Organisms:

GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals that have been genetically modified. Genetic modification involves the mutation, insertion, or deletion of genes.

Transgene is a segment of DNA containing a gene sequence that has been isolated from one organism and is introduced into a different organism. A transgenic organism is one that carries a foreign gene that has been deliberately inserted into its genome.

Bioremediation:

Bioremediation is the use of microbes to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater. Microbes are very small organisms, such as bacteria, that live naturally in the environment. Bioremediation stimulates the growth of certain microbes that use contaminants as a source of food and energy. Contaminants treated using bioremediation include oil and other petroleum products, solvents, and pesticides.

The use of genetic engineering to create organisms specifically designed for bioremediation has great potential. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans (the most radioresistant organism known) has been modified to consume and digest toluene and ionic mercury from highly radioactive nuclear waste. Mycoremediation is a form of bioremediation in which fungi are used to decontaminate the area.

Cynobacteria:

One of the most common air pollutants is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and its main sources are from combustions such as vehicle and power generator. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it traps heat and ultimately causes global warming. And global warming then lead to a greater impact to the environment such as rises in sea water level and even food shortage due to death of crops by high temperature.

Thus to reduce the impact caused by carbon dioxide, apart from increase the intake of carbon dioxide by the plants, researchers from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) had also genetically modified (GM) a cyanobacteria which is able to consume carbon dioxide via photosynthesis under sunlight to produce isobutanol, a liquid fuel. With the ability to produce fuel, it will be an incentive for energy infrastructures such as automobiles to use GM cyanobacteria, since by using it will cut done on their cost for fossil fuel and thus able to earn more profits. Apart from that by using the bacteria in the infrastructure, it will reduce the carbon dioxide, minimizing pollution at its root source. Therefore, using GM cyanobacteria will be a win- win situation for both energy infrastructure and the environment.

Oil-eating bacteria:

Even though petroleum products are the major source of energy for industry as well as day today life, it also poses major concern over hydrocarbon release during its production. These are released into soil, air and water which posses a great danger to the natural habitats. The oil spills from marine water are treated using bioremediation methods.

An oil spill is an environmental hazard that is dangerous to many species of plants and animals. One of the methods of cleaning up oil spills that has been investigated is the use of oil-eating bacteria. These strains of soil bacteria naturally use oils in the environment as their food. They also need some inorganic nutrients, oxygen and water in their environment in order to survive. The oil-digesting abilities of soil bacteria are thought to vary depending on the amount of oil found in the natural environment of different bacterial strains.

Pseudomonads are a family of bacteria that have the uncanny ability to break down and assimilate large, complex organic compounds, such as camphor. Individual Pseudomonas strains possess only a handful of the genes that enable it to break down the hydrocarbons in crude oil.  Dr. Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, an Indian-born scientist figured that a strain that contained all the genes might be able to handle a significant amount of oil, and so he inserted plasmids containing the genes into a single strain of Psuedomonas Putida and cultivated it in his GE laboratory.  The result was a recombinant organism, a genetically modified pseudomonad capable of breaking down (in theory, at least) large amounts of crude oil.

GloFish: The GloFish is a patented brand of genetically modified (GM) fluorescent zebrafish with bright red, green, and orange fluorescent color. The original zebrafish from which the GloFish was developed measures three centimeters long and has gold and dark blue stripes. In 1999, Dr. Zhiyuan Gong and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore were working with a gene called green fluorescent protein (GFP), originally extracted from a jellyfish, that naturally produced bright green bioluminescence. They inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish’s genome, which caused the fish to be brightly

fluorescent under both natural white light and ultraviolet light. Their goal was to develop a fish that could detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins. It is the first genetically modified animal to become publicly available as a pet.

See-Through Animals:

Dissecting animals for science has sparked controversies worldwide, even prompting some companies to create computer simulations as cruelty-free alternatives. For high school students everywhere, this revealing amphibian may be a cut above regular frogs. That’s because the see-through frog does not require dissection to see its organs, blood vessels, and eggs.

Applications of Transgenic bacteria:

·         Transgenic bacteria can be used to produce human proteins.

·         Transgenic plants are common in agriculture.

·         Transgenic animals are used to study diseases and gene functions.