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Tsjerk
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I have to agree with Subcomputer, I first have to see how much they tell; for example if the seeds they provide with the kit are wild-type and so on.
By the way, the won't survive the winter. They have a live cycle of around three months of which the pictures of the glowing plants they show are
between 4-6 weeks. Before that the are really small, after that, they start to pump all their energy into the production of seeds, which will probably
ruin the luminescence.
Off course you can grow them inside during winter, but depending off the country you live in you will probably need extra (electrical) illumination.
If growing outside, forget about growing in Autumn or winter when you live in a climate where there is a significant difference between the length of
day between the different seasons. These plants are sensitive for the length of the day regarding their growth cycle. They really don't get happy if
you mess with the length of the day (keep in mind artificial light also messes this process up, especially blue and red light, look up dark and light
plants for this).
Maybe it is possible when you live in sub-tropical/tropical/desert conditions, but remember they can not stand to much direct sun and need to be kept
moist during growth. Also they need sandy and pour ground.
The sandy and pour ground makes me wonder how much light they are really going to produce, but that is another story.
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk  | | I have to agree with Subcomputer, I first have to see how much they tell; for example if the seeds they provide with the kit are wild-type and so on.
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You need non-glowing plants to do your own transformation. I'd be more interested in wild-type myself out of curiosity about how variations would
affect light output, but hey, I can see why some people would swing towards something more standard. As for the rest, are these plants really easy to
mass-produce, or really difficult? 
Subcomputer, you seem to be unfamiliar with Monsanto and completely missing my point. I wasn't aware, either, of a single field where you were
required to make your work available to the general public for free - most journals out there are decidedly non-free and you go from the horror of
paying for a handful of seeds to needing to pay in order to see what they even did.
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Tsjerk
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I understand you need non-glowing plants to do your transformation, but this does not say anything about the seeds being wild-type (WT, meaning;
considered natural, not-altered).
The fact why I wonder why the seeds are wild-type or not is because I wonder whether the glowing plants produced with this kit will be fertile.
Even if the seeds are WT that doesn't mean the offspring will be fertile... There are so many tricks in molecular plant breeding I won't even
speculate on what the could be doing here...
Therefore I said I would first like to see all the plant strains, bacterial strains and DNA sequences they use before I believe what they're selling
is really as good as what the want use to believe.
Edit; In real live the only meaning you can give to WT is it being a strain that is recognized by most scientists as being ''natural''. It is not, but
at least everybody uses the same strain when referring to WT, it is not a GMO in the narrowest sense of the word
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk]
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk]
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by Etaoin Shrdlu | | Subcomputer, you seem to be unfamiliar with Monsanto and completely missing my point. I wasn't aware, either, of a single field where you were
required to make your work available to the general public for free - most journals out there are decidedly non-free and you go from the horror of
paying for a handful of seeds to needing to pay in order to see what they even did. |
Some journals in biomed research, and all experiments with public funding not restricted in some manner to security clearances, require some form of
public data accessibility such as GEO or aforementioned... but there are often no standards for how you present data. I have trawled through lots of
worthless genetic or bioinformatic data because the structuring and labeling was proprietary or shoddy. I have even seen PDF files of .CSV data that
effectively truncated cells, rendering them completely unusable. Some of that is probably "government work" and sub par researcher inspired, but some
is inarguably calculated to maintain a strategic positioning in the field.
I have yet to see obscuration of actual gene constructs or primers, though I have seen IP claimed such as in Taq polymerase... though any biology lab
above highschool level should be capable of designing their own primers and illegally pumping out their own.
Even without restriction endonuclease site information, a differential digest, Southern blot, and subsequent PCR should yield that information. The
actual transformation would be the trickiest part, in my experience. I've seen membrane receptors localize in the nucleus... where they are never
otherwise found, within stable human constructs. These were apparently very difficult to get from transients and became a bit of a joke where I work
to everyone outside the lab which made them.
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Tsjerk
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Oh Yes! The joy of transmembrane proteins and their localization... They are bastards.
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk]
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk]
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk | | Edit; In real live the only meaning you can give to WT is it being a strain that is recognized by most scientists as being ''natural''. It is not, but
at least everybody uses the same strain when referring to WT, it is not a GMO in the narrowest sense of the word |
That's the same definition I'm familiar with, though in regards to fish, invertebrates, and amphibians.
It's quite possible that the plants will be sterile, but I consider it unlikely. Since their initial method of introducing the genes for luminescence
required a plant pathogen, unless something's changed very recently they're going to need to switch to using a gene gun in order to produce plants
that they can legally sell. Since they're very confident of getting seeds out of the strain afterwards, I consider that the plants are probably
fertile.
| Quote: Originally posted by Chemosynthesis | Some journals in biomed research, and all experiments with public funding not restricted in some manner to security clearances, require some form of
public data accessibility such as GEO or aforementioned... but there are often no standards for how you present data. I have trawled through lots of
worthless genetic or bioinformatic data because the structuring and labeling was proprietary or shoddy. I have even seen PDF files of .CSV data that
effectively truncated cells, rendering them completely unusable. Some of that is probably "government work" and sub par researcher inspired, but some
is inarguably calculated to maintain a strategic positioning in the field.
I have yet to see obscuration of actual gene constructs or primers, though I have seen IP claimed such as in Taq polymerase... though any biology lab
above highschool level should be capable of designing their own primers and illegally pumping out their own.
Even without restriction endonuclease site information, a differential digest, Southern blot, and subsequent PCR should yield that information. The
actual transformation would be the trickiest part, in my experience. I've seen membrane receptors localize in the nucleus... where they are never
otherwise found, within stable human constructs. These were apparently very difficult to get from transients and became a bit of a joke where I work
to everyone outside the lab which made them. |
There are similar problems in chemistry, unfortunately, though I'd like to think they're probably less terrible than what biologists run into simply
because of the sheer complexity of living organisms.
I think we're seeing this from very different angles, though. You seem to be looking at it from an academic perspective, where requirements to publish
research are key considerations; I'm used to working in industry where not publishing research is considered to be optimal, and I think
that's the same sort of attitude a lot of commercial genetic engineering tends to fall under. I just think it's rather nice that this is being offered
as a potential starting block to everyone, even those who don't have a lab but would like to do some selective breeding, rather than coming loaded
with kill switches, obscured data, and orders not to propagate as very well could have happened. This is a pretty big plus coming from people who are
trying to make money, and it's a very big plus on the heels of Starlight Avatar which comes with the following starkly contrasting and hilarious terms
of use:
Bioglow grants the buyer a limited license to use the purchased plant for personal, ornamental,non-research and non-commercial use only.
Not to use the plant, seeds, flowers, germplasm, plant tissue, transplants, genetic material or any part of the plant for any breeding, tissue
culture, sexual or asexual propagation, seed production, reverse engineering, genetic fingerprinting, molecular or genetic analysis or engineering, or
research.
No plant or any part of the plant may be preserved or used in any way for self- or cross-pollination reproductions, cloning or any other germplasm
extraction, multiplying or manipulation.
Not to copy, extract, reproduce, modify or translate any part of the genetic material contained in the plant, seed or any part of the plant.
Not to sell, offer to sell, transfer, export, sublicense, give, or supply the plant, seeds, or any part of the plant, to any other person or entity.
Plant is not for human or animal consumption.
All rights not specifically granted are reserved by Bioglow.
You guys may not find this useful or impressive (and alright, it's certainly a gimmick), but compared to the way other commercial entities have been
treating GMOs, this is a direction I am very giddy about.
[Edited on 3-31-2014 by Etaoin Shrdlu]
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Tsjerk
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''Since they're very confident of getting seeds out of the strain afterwards, I consider that the plants are probably fertile.''
That is just the point, it is in all not necessary to have fertile plants to produce fertile seeds, just have a look at what the big seed companies
are doing in the US when they sell their GMO seeds which are not fertile themselves.
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk]
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by Etaoin Shrdlu |
There are similar problems in chemistry, unfortunately, though I'd like to think they're probably less terrible than what biologists run into simply
because of the sheer complexity of living organisms.
|
Isn't science, the practice/bureaucracy (as opposed to the methodology) weird? I worked a fairly short time in synthesis after graduating, and I
definitely saw papers from China and India with either a) results the grads and PI couldn't replicate, or b) yields none of us believed, and had to be
inflated.
The other big difference I see, stemming from the complexity of biochemical systems, in publication bullshit-ability between chem/bio type
publications is that there are far more of the biochemically based assays than I ever encountered in chemical characterization techniques; the
difference between electrical or scratch wound healing, or healing compared to cell migration assays, using MTT vs. MTS, caspase assays, or Trypan
staining, changing buffers/media for cells, etc. as nauseum, or even blot image manipulation, can all be extremely deceptive to biochemist/biologist
types who are not involved in your subspecialty, but might work in your lab, across the hall, at a funding body, or feel knowledgeable enough to
review your papers.
With pure chemistry, I always felt I could trust an NMR, Mass-Spec, and aside from questions on the solvent and column, generally accept HPLC, but
that could have been ignorance from furthering my education and professional experience outside of pure chemistry. When running HPLC on cell lysates,
or STD NMR on a drug lead against a target protein, questions about solvents and gradients that never took up as much time in synthesis. In
biochemisty/pharmacology, I often have to ask if I understand what exactly the published methodology and data are telling me in ways I did not
previously consider.
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk |
''Since they're very confident of getting seeds out of the strain afterwards, I consider that the plants are probably fertile.''
That is just the point, it is in all not necessary to have fertile plants to produce fertile seeds, just have a look at what the big seed companies
are doing in the US when they sell their GMO seeds which are not fertile themselves.
[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Tsjerk] |
I think they tend to be fertile, farmers just aren't legally allowed to save seed from them. Some of them might also be hybrid GMOs so that you get a
whole mess of different phenotypes in the next generation which is undesirable even if they still have the original desired modification. Most corn
farmers in the US use hybrid seed like this whether it's GMO or not, and tend to buy every year rather than saving seed like farmers in many other
parts of the world. I do know Monsanto has killswitch technology, but not the specifics behind it. Now I'm curious. Something to look into over the
week.
Now, this was my reasoning. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a long time since I even thought about this sort of thing. To modify plants with a gene
gun, they'd do the following:
1: Culture plant cells.
2: Fire nanoparticles coated with DNA into the cell culture.
3: Pick out individual cells from the "good" middle ring, where the cells aren't completely destroyed by the impact or mostly missed by the genetic
material, then treat them with hormones to get them to differentiate into entire plants.
4: Self-pollinate plants that show the desired modification to get seed for the next generation.
I can't really see a good way for the plants from those seeds to be infertile when the parents weren't. Maybe they could require specific conditions
in order to be capable of fertility, though.
EDIT: Alright, this is pretty clever.
However, there are no restrictions against tissue culturing or any of the other bizarre look-don't-touch terms that Bioglow has in place. I really do
think these guys are trying to keep the project as open as possible. They'll only damage their credibility if a bunch of people find out after being
promised they could do whatever they wanted, that actually there are a bunch of deliberate barriers in place. And they could have a really
good deal going if they make a name for themselves as the ones to go to for glowing varieties of all sorts of plants.
[Edited on 3-31-2014 by Etaoin Shrdlu]
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Tsjerk
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@Etaoin Shrdlu; the gene gun isn't the preferred way of plant transformation for the last fifteen years as far as I know. Everyone goes with the
agrobacterium method nowadays, and if not elektroporation of protoplasts.
I don't know how Monsanto does it, but their seeds are non-reproductive. They form seeds, but these are not viable.
It would be nearly undo-able/impossible to check every farmer if their crops are first generation or not. Better to make it impossible, not?
Edit: The patent posted is pretty outdated as well, 20 years sounds like two centuries to a molecular biologist.
[Edited on 1-4-2014 by Tsjerk]
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk | | @Etaoin Shrdlu; the gene gun isn't the preferred way of plant transformation for the last fifteen years as far as I know. Everyone goes with the
agrobacterium method nowadays, and if not elektroporation of protoplasts. |
They announced they would be using a gene gun. I should have been clearer.
Would elektroporation allow seeds to be altered directly, with a high degree (say 90%) of success? Wouldn't it also require viable adults to produce
seed if they wanted to sell it? I'm not familliar with this method at all.
| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk | | I don't know how Monsanto does it, but their seeds are non-reproductive. They form seeds, but these are not viable. |
Actually, supposedly Monsanto doesn't do it at all. They hold patents to do it, but they've pledged not to use them (and I think this is
because it's not economically feasible to have additional strains going for one seed crop when they could just use fertile plants and maximize space).
I think other people may do it - I know the idea's been found viable. I can't point you to whom though. I'd actually been assuming Monsanto was at
first until I went looking through their patents and read a little of the history. For all I know now I may have been completely mistaken and
everyone's playing somewhat nice about introducing sterility.
They definitely do sue for saving seed from crops - 145 lawsuits from 1997 to what I'm assuming is 2010.
The patent may be old, I think the idea of using multiple engineered strains to crossbreed infertile plants is the key though. It's also if I
understand correctly, no longer in force in the US at least - so technically all the agro-businesses here have use of it if they so desire.
I think the ability to engineer infertile plants hasn't yet turned out to be as much of a problem as people originally thought it would. It's just the
entire mindset behind developing things like that which is scary, and I'm not seeing that in the glowing arabidopsis project. Maybe you're right,
though, maybe they pulled some jerk move. We'll probably have to wait a few months after the seeds ship to find out for certain. Unfortunately I have
the exact opposite of a green thumb so will likely have trouble getting any of them to grow to begin with, let alone enough for extensive testing.
(Doesn't apply underwater, oddly enough.)
But now for the most important question - if gene guns are antique tech now, why won't anyone sell me an old one for the price of a benchtop
minicentrifuge? Disappointment abounds.
[Edited on 4-1-2014 by Etaoin Shrdlu]
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by Etaoin Shrdlu |
Would elektroporation allow seeds to be altered directly, with a high degree (say 90%) of success? Wouldn't it also require viable adults to produce
seed if they wanted to sell it? I'm not familliar with this method at all.
|
It's theoretically possible to produce somatic mutations in the fertilized seeds, which would not carry the transformation to the next generation, but
I wouldn't believe one could do that reliably unless I saw it, at least currently.
I'm not sure about plants in particular, but I know most cells have a very minute chance of stable, surviving transformation/transfection, so I am
pretty curious about how selection works to avoid mosaicism in survivors. I suppose chloroplast DNA might be homologous within species that it may be
what is targeted in this case. I am pretty sure someone here could clue me in more about plant genetics.
Companies like Monsanto have screened and selected plants with multiple constitutively activated transformed genes of interest when they need to be
turned on perpetually (and generally the best operons/promoters if not). This helps avoid the extreme waste in performing new transformations every
time you want a mutation, and rolling the dice on what promoters you insert behind, if your organism survives, etc.
There is a bit of chance involved in most methods such as electroporation, heat shock, lipofectamine, etc. While efficient, you are essentially
bathing cells in a solution of exogenous DNA, subject to diffusion, and trying not to overwhelm said cells in various stages of division, with
variably accessible regions of DNA (topology dependent on individual sequence, numerous directly interacting proteins, cell cycle checkpoints, binding
affinities, epigenetics, etc.)
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karlos³
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Sorry for the necropost, but I didn´t wanted to start a new thread on its own for my post.
Since the project is now running for quite some time, I guess some progress has been made, if not by the people linked in the first post(their site
hasn´t been updated for some time, e.g. 1-2 years) then by some others.
Reason I am asking this was a curious found at ebay, from a chinese seller in bad english and for a very low price, seeds of a "fluorescent light
emitting plant" are offered there.
We all know the chinese don´t care much when it comes to using someone elses work, and they have very clever scientists too.
So what do you think, are these really bioluminescent plant seeds? Not even the species is named, but see for yourself: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-100Pcs-Emerald-Fluorescent-Flow...
I bought some as the price was low enough that it is no loss, if it is disappointing.
But could these be very real, bioluminescent plants?
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BlackDragon2712
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Very fascinating... using Agrobacterium sp. to transfer the modified dna into the plant... it looks almost doable in a home set up... I wonder what
protein are they using... maybe GFP in an E. Coli plasmid vector? I know of a few commercial plasmids that come with GFP... Imaging getting infected
with an E. Coli with GFP plasmids... it would be interesting to say the least
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Ursa
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| Quote: Originally posted by BromicAcid | | What kind of plant is it? I think it would be phenomenal to use these to line paths leading up to a home but curious if it would survive a winter.
Very cool. |
On the website it says its an Arabidopsis plant.
Vivo!
Ens causa sui
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