January 2, 2007

Biotech: transgenic potatoes supply polymer for sustainable diapers

One of the easiest ways to kill small talk is to say things like "To send troops to Iraq was a great idea. But I think we should send the NATO to Iran too." But there is one kind of comment that is even more efficient if you think you need to reduce the number of people feeling obliged to send you a Christmas card: Tell your friends you really like how biotechnology is producing transgenic plants, and that you serve genetically modified food to your kids on Christmas eve.

Because they all heard how these dangerous genetically modified crops work: that they kill these precious insects and that sometimes killer tomatoes escape Frankenstein's laboratory to take over the earth. Some Christians even insist that biotech interferes in God's creation which they believe is a sin. What they might not have heard yet, besides the fact that the Bible considers locusts a plague and a menace, is the ability of many newly developed transgenic plants to produce renewable resources, an approach that is an environmentally friendly and economically competitive way to supply raw materials for industrial purposes.

Researchers at the University of Rostock e.g. developed a potato that produces biodegradable polymers. These are the same polymers that are usually made of fossil fuels and used for the production of washing powder, cement or diapers, to name only a few. And even better: the potato polymer comes from the leftovers of potatoes that were already used for industrial starch production.

Senior researcher Prof. Inge Broer of Rostock University says that in the last years her team succeeded to increase the polymer production of the potatoes to an extent that industrial production of the substance could start in due course. The best of the new technology is of course that the new bio-polymer is biodegradable once the diaper or washing powder is used and that other than Frankenstein's tomatoes this new technology could greatly contribute to a more healthy environment.

Not yet convinced? Here is the summary of Prof. Broer's report:
"The production of biodegradable polymers in transgenic plants in order to replace petrochemical compounds is an important challenge for plant biotechnology. Polyaspartate, a biodegradable substitute for polycarboxylates, is the backbone of the cyanobacterial storage material cyanophycin. Cyanophycin, a copolymer of L-aspartic acid and L-arginine, is produced via non-ribosomal polypeptide biosynthesis by the enzyme cyanophycin synthetase. A gene from Thermosynechococcus elongatus BP-1 encoding cyanophycin synthetase has been expressed constitutively in tobacco and potato. The presence of the transgene-encoded messenger RNA (mRNA) correlated with changes in leaf morphology and decelerated growth. Such transgenic plants were found to produce up to 1.1% dry weight of a polymer with cyanophycin-like properties. Aggregated material, able to bind a specific cyanophycin antibody, was detected in the cytoplasm and the nucleus of the transgenic plants."

The full report appeared in: Plant Biotechnological Journal (2005) 3, pp. 249-258. Prof. Inge Broer's website: http://www.auf.uni-rostock.de/iln/bt/