Are big AgriBusiness and their university scientist stooges pushing it too far? First it was a blue strawberry with a fish gene.
Scientists have altered the jellyfish green fluorescent protein. When they change the protein sequence, they can change the emission color, making any combination available.
2 comments:
Hi Kevin.
So I understand how jelly fish protein is used to tag intracellular proteins in neurology, oncology, etc-- exciting stuff in biomedical research.
Don't know if its ignorance or lack of an active imagination, cause I don't have a clue. Besides being pretty to look at, how are flourescent proteins applicable to biotechnology of fruit- in life or death?
Hi Ena, the fluorescent protein was simply GFP from jellyfish. The molecule has been remodeled to absorb and emit at different wavelengths. Pretty cool.
The proteins allow us to see where a given product is likely produced. The coding region for the gene is hooked up to the gene's promoter, showing expression in tissues where that promoter is "on".
A stunning example is the expression of multiple different fluorescent proteins in specific cell types of the brain. Amazing pics from mouse.
Google "Brainbow" and look at images.
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