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World's First True Blue Rose, Thanks to Biotech
FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers from CSRIO achieved the holy grail of rose breeders since 1840 - breeding a blue rose. Using RNAi technology, they knocked down the red pigment gene and introduced a blue pigment producing one. The result is the world's first true blue rose - no word about whether it'll be commercially available or not. A factsheet describing the technique and a detailed summary are available."
http://www.physorg.com/news3581.html
no word about whether it'll be commercially available or not.
Go back and RTFA:
Commercial availability
Florigene has already successfully created blue carnations using gene technology and these have been available in Australia since 1996.
It will be at least 3 years before blue roses will be commercially available in Australia, pending approval from the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator for their commercial release.
The way of talking about this that is in current vogue among biologists seems to be "cladistic analysis". All life forms are classified in a tree structure representing evolutionary pedigree. This is probably a gross simplification, but every genetic innovation creates a new branch (or clades). Some would argue that traditional taxonomic categories like genera and species are meaningless.
If you replace the red gene with a blue gene, you have developed a new clades. It is still substantially a rose, whether or not it smell sweet. Of course your mom might not call this thing a rose if it smelled like a skunk, so YMMV.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"although the prototype is pale mauve, it is the first rose in the world with the genetic potential to produce 'true blue' roses, spanning the spectrum from palest blue to Mediterranean blue, or even navy blue."
and this:
"The new rose is an attractive shade of mauve, similar to the current generation of mauve-lilac roses like 'Blue Moon' and 'Vol de Nuit'. But where these cultivars express cyanidin, and are thus incapable of yielding blue flowers, the new rose, with further 'tweaking', has the genetic potential to be truly blue.
Blue shades should be achievable if Florigene and Suntory researchers can make the rose's petals less acidic. Rose petals are moderately acidic, with a pH around 4.5, while carnation petals are less so, with a pH of 5.5."
So unless this story is old and that picture is really new, I'm guessing it is fake or just an "artist's conception."
IANAL, but I play one on
picture here Florigene LTD
Sig
It depends. If you transfect a stable, integrated form of siRNA, you get permanent effects. Its easy to do; all you need is a "gene" coding for an hairpin corresponding to both siRNA strands.
Oh and I added a picture of the roses, for all those who wanted to see it.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
siRNA is straight forward competitive inhibition.
It works because it is cheap and fast to do.
I did not intend to say that the siRNA sequence will no longer become functional, rather the blue rose will not breed true.
Since the original colors genes are still intact AND stil expressed, once the siRNA is removed (say through breeding) the colors will once again appear.
The ONLY way to make this line breed true (and therefore become a strain) is to either knock out the colors or prevent expression....it looks like knocking out the "Rose DFR gene" would do it.