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[GrowerAndaShower]

Hey all, just thought I'd share a link to something cool I found, they're Arabidopsis plants  genetically modified to produce light by expressing luciferase(the chemical that gives Foxfire Mushrooms, Glowworms, and Lightning Bugs their glow)

http://www.glowingplant.com/maker

Not getting one myself, although I think it'd be awesome to get the kit and treat coleus seeds. They're so pretty in the light, and they could glow at night

[TBM]

How interesting, a GMO that isn't pesticide related! I remember reading about some other GMOs that aren't focused on pesticides (like making crop plants frost tolerant or how they're making apples that won't brown?), but this is a different mod all together! Could make for an efficient nightlight for the bedroom.

I wonder if this luciferase modification would shorten the lifespan of the plants treated.

[GrowerAndaShower]

I have no idea, but I'd really like to play around with it. I'm tempted to order some seeds and see if they produce viable, true to type(luciferase containing) seeds. Would be awesome to be able to share those, as it'd be something nobody else had offered before.

Cold hardiness genetic manipulation is something that would be awesome to do with quite a few of the plants we share around here, for those of us in colder regions. Imagine being able to grow Caapi, Kratom, or Salvia outdoors in an area that freezes over. Probably can't make too extreme of a modification in cold hardiness without affecting some other part of the plants' growth, but I'm sure you could extend the range by a decent amount.

[kykeion]

Interesting to see that they are selling seed.  I remember when they (or someone... ah after a bit of looking around this is different folks) first announced the production of glowing plants there was a pretty hefty license agreement that pretty much only allowed you to look at the plant you bought.

http://sharetheseeds.me/forum/index.php?topic=3028.msg23906#msg23906

[LIBERTYNY]

 I know very little about the genetic modification process, but cant imagine it being something the 'average joe' could preform in their kitchen with a 300$ kit  ? ?

[GrowerAndaShower]

I looked into genetic modification a few years ago, and there are people doing it in their kitchens. computer monitors can serve as incubators, you can use a pressure cooker to sterilize. I completely believe a $300 kit can give you what you need for one gene swap. The "average joe" probably has a high chance of contamination in his cultures, but I believe most people could get it done. The instructions are probably going to be something along the lines of:
Mix this tube of virus with this tube of DNA
cold shock the virus to get it to uptake genes(probably in your freezer for a bit)
mix virus with seeds
incubate for XX hrs at XX°F
plant seeds.

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[SoulGrower]

Please think twice
"No to Glow"

imho, this is a terrible idea.  For the same reason many of us protest Monsanto.  Just bc this is not a gmo designed to tolerate pesticides, doesn't make the consequences any different.  Problem is, we have no idea of what the consequences will be.  And to give a kit to let anyone fuck with the genes of any plant (or animal) that they please...  Horrible idea 

Here's a petition to sign, from the article
Tell Kickstarter not to allow bioengineered organisms

1 Like rakeandbake likes this.

[kykeion]

Not to burst your bubble, but those links are to article/petition that are over three years old. Not sure that signing is going to do much good at this point since funding was successful and awarded. I guess it may block future funding...

[SoulGrower]

Haha.. fair enough.  Hadn't noticed that.  I did notice they hadn't gathered many signatures   

What will burst my bubble is when any average joe can go creating whatever frankenstein organism they want.....  easily   

[Leopardgecko44]

Whats next? Glowing Cannabis plants? 

1 Like Mangrove likes this.

[GrowerAndaShower]

Whats next? Glowing Cannabis plants? 

I'd like to see some cannabis plants with leaves colored like a coleus. That'd be cool.

[MRTree]

I loved this!!!

[H J Farnsworth]

This is pretty damn cool! Im gonna try to source the materials on my own to get the price down.

[XDX]

working with this in the lab right now... i'm not supportive of GMO's, but its something that needs to be understood today with the prevalence in culture... hopefully by understanding more how its being done, i can figure out how to convince people to not do it...

anyway.. what were doing is using a bacteria species Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which basically does a natural GMO thing where it inserts some of its DNA sequence into a host plants DNA. this bacterial DNA codes for a gall production, like a tumor, it programs the host plant to build it home and feed it. So then were using this bacterial "technology", but the gall-inducing DNA sequence has been replaced with a GFP (green fluorescent protein) producing sequence, and were using the bacteria to GMO test plants. So, in a nutshell,  we've GMO'd a bacteria to GMO the plant for us, to make it glow, to observe "viral tracking", how the pathogen/effectors/GMO effect spreads throughout plant tissue.

as i said, im not supportive of man-made gmo, although i find this bacterial gmo function thing really interesting, as well as things like viral mutations. i think we can give a lil more attention to selective breeding of both plants and their microbial associations. you can breed generations of microbes in perti dishes very rapidly, where it takes seasons, years to breed plants. i cant think of the term right now, cross-tolerance resistance?

there was a thing when westerners started exploring deeper into papau new guinea, and they found some folks were afflicted by some virus, and others by malaria. well they dropped off a bunch of immunizations for the first virus and dosed everyone, and they all were resistant to the first virus, but then everyone started dying of malaria. what they didnt realize is while there were folks dying from both diseases before western contact, those that were silent carriers for the first virus were resistant to the malaria virus. when they gave the immunizations to everyone with the different strain of virus A, they did not develop the same resistance to malaria, and so much more of the population suffered from malaria as a result. my point is, gmos are largely used to increase yields and to increase resistance to pathogens... well really its to increase tolerance of pesticides.. technology is advancing, but in general, the effects of these gmos are short lived, pathogens evolve to beat them fast, while we disrupt the natural evolution of the plants we are trying to strengthen. this is just my disorganized hypothesis, and maybe folks somewhere are way ahead of me in their research, but if we can utilize naturally occurring mechanics to induce genetic mutations, by mass/rapid breeding of microbe species with these qualities, then inoculate plants with the microbe cultures, cultivate symbiosis, these will provide for more well-rounded mutations that are longer lasting, and which continue to evolve.

you could easily do what i first mentioned in a kitchen, if you want to purchase pure culture samples and genes or w/e. the application is easy and not sterile. for extracting DNA, you'll need a centrifuge, and some chemicals you can probably buy online.

1 Like FewTrueSeed likes this.

[BubbleCat]

Did you ever work with CRISPR/Cas ? Very promising IMO.
https://www.addgene.org/crispr/

Personally I am very supportive of GMOs, man made or not, especially cisgenic.
As I see it: As long as we accept traditional methods of breeding (including those beyond cross pollination like radiating, inducing polyploidy etc.) we can not complain about GMOs. I see the mentioned traditional methods "non GMO" like throwing a granade at the range: Yes, you did hit your target but the collateral damage is not acceptable. Later the plant is stabilised and bred back to maintain the new feature and loose as much as possible of the collateral damage. Genetic modification on the other side targets  only the specific gene(s) that were intendet to be altered. No collateral damage that will be covered up as good as possible later.
Also thanks to public genophobia the application process for new GMOs is much stricter (in my area) than for any other new crop (no GMO failed so far btw). That makes the product safer and I wouldnt be surprised if one day, thanks to rigorous testing, we even discover a certain vegetable contains questionable compounds already in its natural form - something we would stay unaware of without testing as rigorous as that.

In summary: Working with mutagenes results in changes at random and often without exact knowledge of all the changes, as only very few of those changes are desired it is then tried to cover up for the other random changes by breeding back into type while selecting for the desired new feature. This makes unwanted changes very likely and thanks to superficial testing they might go unnoticed.

A man made GMO on the other side is safe as only intendet changes are made and later confirmed.

Also in terms of tainting natural populations I do not see how GMOs are more concerning than conventionally bred plants. In the end all changes, random or intendet, could have happened in nature anyways and if we dont grow crops outnumbering the natural population by far it might change but not get extinct as selection takes care of (naturally) undesirable features.

In the end I am highly in favour of all-natural plants. I like them wild and undomesticated, not bred in any way.

I believe important for the future is a better (or complete) understanding of the sequences. This research is usually done by depriving cells of genes and testing their sustainability, by that we can determine critical genes, by depriving the cell of individual genes of the critical genes and determining why it failed we understand which basic process of life relies on which genes. Then we can start adding genes commonly found in the species and again observe changes and understand more avout the purpose of individual genes. Lastly it comes to interactions, those are very complex and should be mostly understood on a chemical level so we get around testing for every possible combination of genes - virtually impossible.
Especially in transgenic creations we might run into danger that existing parts of the code will cause unexpected metabolism of compounds we have added, for example to create pest resistence. We might end up unaware of not having only added one but several compounds. Enzymes could go postal if put into different environments.