10 February 2005
Open-source gene transfer
Control of the biotechnology involved in producing genetically modified crops is concentrated in the hands of a few multinational companies, in part because of the complex web of patents involved. A group at CAMBIA, the Center for the Application of Molecular Biology for International Agriculture in Australia, set out to untangle this web and make the technology more widely available by developing a work-around for a key enabling technology in plant biotechnology, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. They found that other species of benign bacteria can be modified in a surprisingly simple way to do the same job, and the resulting gene transfer technology is to be made available on an 'open source' basis as part of the recently launched BIOS initiative (Nature 431, 494; 2004).
Gene transfer to plants by diverse species of bacteria
WIM BROOTHAERTS, HEIDI J. MITCHELL, BRIAN WEIR, SARAH KAINES, LEON M. A. SMITH, WEI YANG, JORGE E. MAYER, CAROLINA ROA-RODR�GUEZ & RICHARD A. JEFFERSON
Nature 433, 629–633 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature03309
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Agricultural biotechnology: Gene exchange by design
STANTON B. GELVIN
Gene transfer from bacteria to plants was thought to be limited to the bacterial genus Agrobacterium. But other bacterial groups also contain species capable of interkingdom genetic exchange.
Nature 433, 583–584 (2005); doi:10.1038/433583a
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