Transgenic Mustard Cleans Up Soils

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers have genetically modified a common plant, the Indian mustard, to absorb more selenium, a toxic heavy metal found in soils polluted by irrigation wastewater. The transgenic plants were four times more efficient at swallowing selenium than natural ones in a contaminated area of California's Central Valley, according to articles from Nature and Wired News. These field tests are only experiments, but the researchers also want to add genes to other plants to remove different toxic materials from soils, such as mercury. What would happen if such transgenic plants filled with dangerous chemicals start to crossbreed with natural ones? Or if an insect eats these plants before being eaten itself in the natural food chain, leading to some selenium in our food? Read more and tell me what you think."

Comments

Sounds like a good thing to me...

[wasted]

The plant takes selenium (which is bad for other plants,) out of the soil, and the plant can be used for feed, since animals need selenium in their diets.

Since this is a mustard plant, will we have Selenium-fortified mustard on our grocery shelves soon?

Re:Sounds like a good thing to me...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

The plant takes selenium (which is bad for other plants,) out of the soil, and the plant can be used for feed, since animals need selenium in their diets.

Selenium is only good in small amounts. It's already very common in plant foods from most regions (depending on the selenium content of the soil), so added Selenium isn't usually needed.

If too much Selenium makes it into your food, via "Selenium-fortified mustard" or via the food chain, you'll get sick.

I'm curious if the Mustard plant takes in additional amounts of minerals other then Selenium, and if those levels are safe.

cross breeding

[Suburbanpride]

What would happen if such transgenic plants filled with dangerous chemicals start to crossbreed with natural ones?

Um a plant filled with dangerous chemicals crossbreeding isn't the problem, but a plant with the GENES that make it more likely to suck up chemicals is a problem. You can also engineer the genes so that they can't breed, and that solves the problem, although it makes it more expensive to replunish the plants.

I'm personaly a bit nervous about GMO in the food supply, but I think this kind of thing, if properly controled, good do great things for the enviroment

Re:cross breeding

[QuantumG]

That sounds like a vegetarian argument. Why not just genetically engineer yourself to absorb sunlight or connect your ass to a wall socket?

Re:Crossbreeding dangerous

[QuantumG]

In fact, inserting these genes into wheat (not that it's even plausable to do so, but hey) would result in a nice high-selenium flour variation. Seeing as the dietry requirements for selenium are not met by what most people eat, that would be cool!

Re:Not an expert, got that right

[3waygeek]

Selenium is actually a p-type semiconductor, and is also useful in photovoltaic and photoconductive applications. I'm no materials scientist, but if one could cheaply extract the selenium from the plants (say, by burning them & processing the ash) after they've detoxed the soil, it might prove to be a boon to various high-technology businesses.

Re:Not an expert, got that right

[spRed]

For 1, Selenium isn't a metal. For 2, it's a necessary part of the diet of all known forms of life (it's a micronutrient). Seeing as you're not an expert on the subject, how about you STFU?

I'll see your STFU and raise you an RTFA (to the original poster), from the Wired article, "He genetically enhanced the plant's ability to convert selenium into a nontoxic form"

"Read more and tell me what you think."

[MarkusQ]

Read more and tell me what you think.

I think this article/posting is filled with anti-GMO FUD.

I think that's kind of sad for a site like /., which (at least in theory) should be a haven for people who take a positive aproach to life, instead of chicken-little ludites.

And I think that if you really didn't want to know what I think, you shouldn't have asked.

--MarkusQ

Re:"Read more and tell me what you think."

[nyteroot]

The article is certainly filled with anti-GMO FUD. The most telling is the following facetious summarization of the science:

Let me summarize this. First, you add genes to a plant which will then easily absorb dangerous and toxic chemicals. Then you use these plants to feed cows. But why on earth a cow would need to ingest more selenium? And are you sure that you want this selenium in your plate?

Check this: Livestock require selenium as a cofactor for the antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase. Supplementation of feeds with selenium has greatly reduced the incidence of deficiencies [1]. Furthermore, as other posters have pointed out, we _ourselves_ need it in our diets and clearly don't get enough. Mod the article -1 Troll.
-------------------
[1] http://www.engormix.com/e_articles.asp?AREA=GDL&NR O=66

Evolution

[Zepalesque]

From Wikipedia (no less)

"It is discovered that selenium, an ingredient in some Head & Shoulders shampoos, is as poisonous to the alien life-forms as arsenic is to humans."

Just wanted to clear that up :)

"I don't think there's any time for lubrication"

"THERE'S ALWAYS TIME FOR LUBRICATION!"

Removing sludge from the environment

[caseih]

Hmm. Maybe better to develop a plant to remove Roland Piquepaille blog advertisements from slashdot...

Selenium in the human diet

[HMarieY]

Generally speaking I am against GMO's especially as they do tend to cross-breed with non-GMO's and if they are a strong enough breed will take over like GMO corn has done ( http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0153.html).

I can see how this could be useful and why, especially in dealing with areas of high-selenium concentrations. And am sure that if it comes into use it will some company , vitamin or otherwise, will find a use for it.

FYI Selenium is a " micromineral needed in the diet on a daily basis, but only in very small amounts (50 milligrams or less). The other microminerals that all humans must get from food are arsenic, boron, cobalt, copper, chromium, fluorine, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, vanadium, and zinc.

In the case of selenium, the amount needed from food is actually measured in micrograms, and ranges from 20-70 micrograms. (A microgram is one thousandth of a milligram, and in one ounce, there are about 30 million micrograms.)

While the nutritional value of all plant food depends on the soil in which it was grown, the selenium content of plants seems particularly sensitive to soil concentrations. For this reason, most of the early research on selenium focused on diseases in sheep, cattle, turkeys, and pigs which involved low soil concentrations of selenium and insufficient amounts of selenium in the forage plants eaten by these animals."

~As stated on the Worlds Best Foods website:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient& dbid=95

Re:Selenium in the human diet

[flyingsquid]

Generally speaking I am against GMO's especially as they do tend to cross-breed with non-GMO's and if they are a strong enough breed will take over like GMO corn has done

All organisms are genetically modified in one fashion or another. Humans have been selectively breeding crops for growth rate, productivity and so on for thousands of years. So should we only eat wild plants? Before that, the plants were bred by the environment. Plus, natural hybridization is responsible for gene exchange in wild plants, while gene uptake from other organisms such as viruses is responsible for foreign DNA getting into plants. That's been going on for hundreds of millions of years. To an evolutionary biologist, the idea of keeping the genes pure is nonsense. Think about it. You have the nucleic acid sequence

actgtagccgat

in a plant. So it's automatically safe and OK and doesn't need testing if it got inserted naturally from a virus or mutation, but it's automatically dangerous and not-OK if humans put it there? That's the assumption a lot of anti-GMO people make. I'm not saying there aren't risks, but there are also risks with organic organisms. Rattlesnake venom, the HIV virus and cocaine are all organic, that doesn't make them good for you. It's all a question of carefully weighing the risks against the rewards.

Precious Metals?

[Ironsides]

How long until they can get plants that will suck up gold/platinum/silver or other precious metals?

Re:Precious Metals?

[n1ywb]

Fuck that, how long until they engineer a tree that grows CASH MONEY?

What If ...

[Salis]

What if I ate 2 tons of the selenium plant and died?

What if I ate 2 tons of beas who ate the selenium plant and died?

What if I got stung by a bea who ate the selenium
plant and died from an acute allergy to beas?

What if I got hit by a car whose driver was a lab tech whose company developed the plant which absorbs selenium?

What if I ate two tons of dirt which contained so much selenium, that would otherwise be absorbed by genetically engineered planted, that I died?

What if I ate two tons of dirt? Eeww.

Ok, enough. There are so many irrelevant "what if" questions. The main questions are: What are the benefits of this plant and how do they compare to the risks of this plant _relative_ to the risk of exististing on this planet (including us, other organisms, and the planet itself). Most genetically engineered (and commercially viable) plants have so much benefit that their risks are wildly outweighed. Even with the "what if"'s.

My two cents.

Obvious answer..

[Anonymous Coward]

What would happen if such transgenic plants filled with dangerous chemicals start to crossbreed with natural ones?

Well of course we'd sue the natural plants for infringing the patents on this gene. Duh! Do we biotech IP lawyers have to explain everything to you guys?

Selenium (Se) is hardly a "toxic heavy metal"

[jd]

It can't exactly be called heavy, at an atomic mass of 34. Nor is it toxic (except in high doses, at which point it rots the brain and can cause birth defects). In fact, in low to moderate doses, it is considered an essential element. Elemental Selenium is connected with many processes, including some cellular defenses against carcinogens.

HOWEVER, that only applies to the elemental form. Certain compounds containing Selenium are highly toxic, and it is my guess that this is what the genetic engineers were interested in.

To quote from WebElements:

Selenium can be prepared with either an amorphous or crystalline structure. Crystalline monoclinic selenium is deep red; crystalline hexagonal selenium, the most stable variety, is a metallic grey (see picture above). Elemental selenium is relatively nontoxic and is considered to be an essential trace element. However, hydrogen selenide (H2Se) and other selenium compounds are extremely toxic, and resemble arsenic in their physiological reactions. Hydrogen selenide in a concentration of 1.5 ppm is intolerable to man. Selenium occurs in some soils in amounts sufficient to produce serious effects on animals feeding on plants such as locoweed (an American plant) grown in such soils.