1. OMG! GMOs! What are GMOs and how are they made?

2. Engineering E. coli to produce a foreign protein

3. Can bacteria produce human proteins?
Human genes may be too big to fit into a plasmid
Bacteria cannot splice introns!
Therefore, need human genes without introns.

4. Synthesis of cDNA using reverse transcriptase
Complementary DNA (cDNA) has no introns, and can be expressed in bacteria to make eukaryotic proteins.

5. Genetic engineering of animals

6. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation

7. Desirable Traits Pest Resistance Herbicide Tolerance Viral Resistance
Drought Resistance
Increased Nutritional Value
Improved Fruit
Altered Ripening
Kirk’s MONSATO experience
Pest resistance = Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), cry delta endotoxin (protein);
Herbicide resistance = RoundUp Ready, glyphosate tolerance, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3- phosphate synthase (EPSPS), from agrobacterium.
Drought resistance = C4 plants, stomata that close to minimize water loss.
Increased Nutritional Value = Golden Rice, beta carotene.
Improved fruit = Flavr Savr tomatoes, delayed softening. Altered Ripening = malin (ethylene precursor; plant hormone). 7

8. Opponents argue 8 • Creation of super pests • Creation of super weeds
Loss of biodiversity
Biotechnology companies control agriculture
Health concerns 8

9. Which foods contain GM product?
US Approval for GM food crops
Corn
Soy
Papaya
Canola
Potato
Chicory
Rice
Squash
Sugarbeet
Tomatoes
Approval does not necessarily mean these crops are distributed
Database of GM crops:
Which foods contain GM product?
Bolded crops are widely grown & sold in US.
Go to the agbio.com web site, extensive and will give you a lot of information on the individual plants
The intent of the kit is to provide a basis of knowledge so that the students get the information (for debate etc..) 9

10. Which foods contain GM product?
80% of soy crop in GMO
This brings up the question… how much of the of food in your pantry contain GMO 10

11. Why test for GMO’s? Legislation Export What about unlabeled food? 11
US: food labeled “GM-Free” <5% GM
EU: food labeled “GM” if >1% GM
Japan: food labeled “GM” if >5%
Export
What about unlabeled food?
The business of Food Import/export 11

12. Genome editing
CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – Cas9 system:
Genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9 (MIT)
Genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9 (J Doudna)