Scribd
Upload
48 views

lebo110 (1)

Uploaded by

medico.kaushal25
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
48 views

lebo110 (1)

Uploaded by

medico.kaushal25
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

BIOLOGY

(ii) organic agriculture; and


(iii) genetically engineered crop-based agriculture.
The Green Revolution succeeded in tripling the food supply but yet
it was not enough to feed the growing human population. Increased yields
have partly been due to the use of improved crop varieties, but mainly
due to the use of better management practices and use of agrochemicals
(fertilisers and pesticides). However, for farmers in the developing world,
agrochemicals are often too expensive, and further increases in yield with
existing varieties are not possible using conventional breeding.
As traditional breeding techniques failed to keep pace with demand and
to provide sufficiently fast and efficient systems for crop improvement,
another technology called tissue culture got developed. What does
tissue culture mean? It was learnt by scientists, during 1950s, that
whole plants could be regenerated from explants, i.e., any part of a
plant taken out and grown in a test tube, under sterile conditions in
special nutrient media. This capacity to generate a whole plant from
any cell/explant is called totipotency. You will learn how to accomplish
this in higher classes. It is important to stress here that the nutrient
medium must provide a carbon source such as sucrose and also
inorganic salts, vitamins, amino acids and growth regulators like auxins,
cytokinins etc. By application of these methods it is possible to achieve
propagation of a large number of plants in very short durations. This
method of producing thousands of plants through tissue culture is
called micro-propagation. Each of these plants will be genetically
identical to the original plant from which they were grown, i.e., they are
somaclones. Many important food plants like tomato, banana, apple,
etc., have been produced on commercial scale using this method. Try to
visit a tissue culture laboratory with your teacher to better understand
and appreciate the process.
Another important application of the method is the recovery of
healthy plants from diseased plants. Even if the plant is infected with a
virus, the meristem (apical and axillary) is free of virus. Hence, one
can remove the meristem and grow it in vitro to obtain virus-free plants.
Scientists have succeeded in culturing meristems of banana, sugarcane,
potato, etc.
178 Scientists have even isolated single cells from plants and after
digesting their cell walls have been able to isolate naked protoplasts
(surrounded by plasma membranes). Isolated protoplasts from two
different varieties of plants – each having a desirable character – can be
fused to get hybrid protoplasts, which can be further grown to form a
new plant. These hybrids are called somatic hybrids while the process

2024-25
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND ITS APPLICATIONS

is called somatic hybridisation. Imagine a situation when a protoplast


of tomato is fused with that of potato, and then they are grown – to form
new hybrid plants combining tomato and potato characteristics. Well,
this has been achieved – resulting in formation of pomato; unfortunately
this plant did not have all the desired combination of characteristics for
its commercial utilisation.
Is there any alternative path that our understanding of genetics can
show so that farmers may obtain maximum yield from their fields? Is
there a way to minimise the use of fertilisers and chemicals so that their
harmful effects on the environment are reduced? Use of genetically
modified crops is a possible solution.
Plants, bacteria, fungi and animals whose genes have been altered by
manipulation are called Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). GM
plants have been useful in many ways. Genetic modification has:
(i)made crops more tolerant to abiotic stresses (cold, drought, salt, heat).
(ii)reduced reliance on chemical pesticides (pest-resistant crops).
(iii)helped to reduce post harvest losses.
(iv) increased efficiency of mineral usage by plants (this prevents early
exhaustion of fertility of soil).
(v) enhanced nutritional value of food, e.g., golden rice, i.e., Vitamin ‘A’
enriched rice.
In addition to these uses, GM has been used to create tailor-made
plants to supply alternative resources to industries, in the form of starches,
fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Some of the applications of biotechnology in agriculture that you will
study in detail are the production of pest resistant plants, which could
decrease the amount of pesticide used. Bt toxin is produced by a
bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt for short). Bt toxin gene has
been cloned from the bacteria and been expressed in plants to provide
resistance to insects without the need for insecticides; in effect created a
bio-pesticide. Examples are Bt cotton, Bt corn, rice, tomato, potato and
soyabean etc.
Bt Cotton: Some strains of Bacillus thuringiensis produce proteins that
kill certain insects such as lepidopterans (tobacco budworm, armyworm),
coleopterans (beetles) and dipterans (flies, mosquitoes). B. thuringiensis
forms protein crystals during a particular phase of their growth. These
crystals contain a toxic insecticidal protein. Why does this toxin not kill
the Bacillus? Actually, the Bt toxin protein exist as inactive protoxins but 179
once an insect ingest the inactive toxin, it is converted into an active form
of toxin due to the alkaline pH of the gut which solubilise the crystals.
The activated toxin binds to the surface of midgut epithelial cells and
create pores that cause cell swelling and lysis and eventually cause death
of the insect.

2024-25

You might also like