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1. What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the use of living things to make or change products. Traditional biotechnology activities include baking bread and making cheese and yoghurt.
Food flavourings, sewerage treatments, antibiotic and insulin production, and cancer treatments are just some examples of modern day biotechnology applications.
Biotechnology allows scientists to develop a better understanding of the function, structure and evolution of plants and animals.
2. What is gene technology?
Gene technology is a tool of modern biotechnology. It includes a range of techniques used by scientists to switch genes off or copy them and move them between species.
Using gene technology, scientists introduce, enhance or delete particular characteristics, depending on whether they are desirable or not.
Gene technology is also known as genetic engineering and genetic modification.
3. What is a genetically modified organism (GMO)?
A GMO is a living thing that has been genetically modified using gene technology.
4. What is a gene?
Genes contain the information that gives living things a particular characteristic, from colour and height to size and shape.
All living things use the same type of code in their genes, and many organisms contain similar genes that control basic functions of life – such as growth.
Plants have around 22,000 genes and animals probably have between 30,000 and 40,000. Gene technology alters, deletes or moves one or two of these genes.
5. What is a protein?
Genes carry all the information required to make proteins. All living things are made up of a combination of proteins and other molecules. Proteins carry out the basic and essential functions in living organisms.
6. What are marker genes?
Marker genes are used in the development of GM plants. They help scientists to identify plant cells that have successfully incorporated the new characteristic, while the plants are still in the development phase.
For example, a gene delaying ripening in tomatoes only shows its effect in the maturing fruit after the time required for the plant to grow and produce tomatoes. It is not practical to grow thousands of tomatoes in order to find one that expresses delayed ripening. Attaching a marker gene allows scientists to identify those with the new gene before the cells even look like a tomato plant.
Marker genes are introduced into the plant as an attachment to the new characteristic.
7. What are antibiotic resistance marker genes?
Antibiotic resistance marker genes have the same role as marker genes, allowing scientists to identify if the new gene has been incorporated into the plant.
Most antibiotic resistance marker genes used in GM crops are of no medical importance and are widely spread in nature, however their use in products destined for the food supply has raised some interest, and researchers are investigating alternatives.
8. Will antibiotic resistance genes cause antibiotic resistance in people?
The presence of antibiotic resistance genes in foods and crops has provoked considerable public concern about their contribution to antibiotic resistance in humans. There is a fear that antibiotics will become useless in the fight against various diseases if humans are exposed to antibiotic resistance genes in their food supply.
However, scientific evidence indicates that there is little cause for concern. Reviews conducted by various government regulatory agencies overseas regarding the use of antibiotic resistance markers have concluded that while such a transfer could theoretically occur, the possibility is extremely small. Such a transfer would involve a complex number of steps, and it has only ever occurred in a laboratory under ‘ideal’ conditions, never in a ‘real-life’ situation.
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