Dona’s Report

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the gene transfer methods in plant?

ANSWER: Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Agrobacterium rhizogenes

are the two direct transformation methods.

Protoplast transformation, electroporation, particle bombardment,

microinjection, sonoporation, lipofection, calcium phosphate, laser
transfection, chloroplast transformation, and mediated transformation
are the indirect methods.

2. What are the differences between Agrobacterium tumefaciens and

Agrobacterium rhizogenes in gene transfer?

ANSWER: Agrobacterium tumefaciens is the most successful and

popular technique compared to other physical/mechanical techniques
while Agrobacterium rhizogenes produces transgenic hairy roots in a
wild type shoot that can be self-propagated.
In A. tumefaciens transformation, leaves are infected, the transformed
cells are selected and a new complete transformed plant is regenerated
using phytohormones in 18 weeks while in A. rhizogenes
transformation, stems are infected by injecting the bacteria with a
needle, the new emerged transformed hairy roots are detected using a
red fluorescent marker and the non-transformed roots are removed. In
5-6 weeks, the resulting plant is a composite of a wild type shoot with
fully developed transformed hairy roots.

Nekka’s Report
QUESTIONS:

1. How are GM food labelled?

ANSWER:

 For the voluntary labelling approach, only GM food that is

significantly different from its conventional counterpart, in
terms of composition, nutritional value and allergenicity, needs
to be labelled.
 For the mandatory labelling approach, it can be further
classified as two categories, i.e. "pan-labelling" or "labelling for
designated products only".
 The "pan-labelling" category requires that any food products,
which contain GM materials exceeding a threshold level or
have any significantly different characteristics as a result of
genetic modification, must be labelled. The "labelling for
designated products only"
 .’’’’’’’The "labelling for designated products only" category
requires that only the designated products, which are
genetically modified, need to be labelled.
GMO FOODS LABELLED BY
 Text on food packaging (example: Partially produced with
genetic engineering)
 A symbol that represents bioengineering
 An electronic or digital link that can be scanned
 Pictured here are the symbols the USDA will require for GMO
labelling
  Smaller food manufacturers with limited resources may also
choose to label their GM foods using a telephone number that
can provide additional information or an internet URL.
 The law requires labelling only on bioengineered foods
intended for human consumption that contain more than five
percent GMO ingredients

Canada and the United States

Labelling of GM foods is only required when the food is significantly

different from its conventional counterpart in terms of composition,
nutrition and allergenicity.
The new requirement stipulates that all foods produced from
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) should be labelled,
irrespective of whether DNA or protein of GM origin is detectable in
the final product. Moreover, conventional foods with adventitious
presence of GM materials of higher than 0.9% should also be
labelled.

2. What are the primary tools used in agricultural biotechnology?

ANSWER: Agricultural biotechnology, also known as agritech, is an

area of agricultural science involving the use of scientific tools and
techniques, including genetic engineering, molecular markers,
molecular diagnostics, vaccines, and tissue culture, to modify living
organisms: plants, animals, and microorganisms doubled haploids,
embryo rescue, and protoplast fusion.
 Leander’s Report

QUESTIONS:

1. What are genetically modified crops and how it affects agricultural

production?

ANSWER: GM crops are foods derived from organisms whose genetic

material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur
naturally, for example through the introduction of a gene from
different organism.

- GM cops could contribute to food production increases and higher

food availability.
- There may also be impacts on food quality and nutrient
composition.
- GM crops may influence farmer’s income and thus their economic
access to food.
- This technology has reduce food and security by 15% among
cotton producing households
- GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be
an important component in a broader food security strategy.
- GM technology impacts on food availability could be bigger if more
GM foods crop were commercialized.

2. How to produce transgenic plants?

ANSWERS: Creating transgenic plants involves several major

procedures, including gene cloning, gene expression, and cloning DNA
vectors, as well as those steps described in polymer photosynthesis.
- When making a transgenic plant, you build what is known as a
construct, and that construct contains the gene that you are
interested in, the gene you want to test, and then it needs a
promoter, and that promoter effectively drives the gene – it makes
the gene make messenger RNA, and that gets turned into protein.
- Apart from that, we put antibiotic-resistant genes in to make it
easier for us to select for those plants that have been properly
transformed.

Vhen Habos Report

QUESTIONS:

1. General objectives of biotechnology in food production.

ANSWERS:

 improvements in food production (agricultural and food

biotechnology)
 environmental health (environmental biotechnology)
 materials production (industrial biotechnology)
 health (biomedical technology)
 Security and national defense.

2. Genetically engineered crop Vs. Classically bred crops.

ANSWERS:

- Genetically engineered crops are being done in a laboratory by the

scientist while the classically bred crops is being produce by the
plant breeder or botanist and it takes 10 years or more to cross
 plants and select a good variety. In other plants, crosses are made
using paintbrushes and tweezers to physically transfer pollen from
one parent to another parent to try to combine desirable
characteristics of each parent into the progeny (babies).
- In classical breeding, thousands of genes are being rearranged,
whereas GE involves the specific handling of single genes (using
“chemical scissors”).
- The genes used in GE can come from any organism, and the genes
in classical breeding must be very closely related.

Kahn’s Report

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the advantages of marker assisted breeding?

ANSWER:

Marker-assisted selection may greatly increase the efficiency and

effectiveness for breeding compared to conventional breeding. The
fundamental advantages of MAS compared to conventional phenotypic
selection are:

 Simpler compared to phenotypic screening

 Selection may be carried out at seedling stage
 Single plants may be selected with high reliability.

These advantages may translate into:

(1) Greater efficiency or

(2) Accelerated line development in breeding programs.
For example, time and labour savings may arise from the substitution of
difficult or time-consuming field trials (that need to be conducted at
particular times of year or at specific locations, or are technically
complicated) with DNA marker tests. Furthermore, selection based on
DNA markers may be more reliable due to the influence of
environmental factors on field trials. In some cases, using DNA markers
may be more cost effective than the screening for the target trait.

Another benefit from using MAS is that the total number of lines that
need to be tested may be reduced. Since many lines can be discarded
after MAS at an early generation, this permits a more effective breeding
design.

- MAS can also be employed as a diagnostics tool to facilitate

selection of progeny who possess the desired trait (s), greatly
speeding up the breeding process.
- This technique has proven particularly useful for the introgression
of resistance genes into new backgrounds, as well as genes
pyramided into a single individual.

2. What is the importance of quantitative trait loci mapping for marker

assisted selection?

ANSWER:

 Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping basically entails finding an

association between a genetic marker and a measurable
phenotype.
 Researchers work from the phenotype to the genotype, using
statistical techniques to localize chromosomal regions that might
contain genes contributing to the phenotypic variation in a
quantitative trait of interest in a population.
 Most traits of interest in plant breeding show quantitative
inheritance, which complicates the breeding process, since
phenotypic performances partially reflects the genetic values of
individuals.
 The genetic variation of a quantitative trait is controlled by the
collective effects of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs), epistasis
(interaction between QTLs) the environment and interaction
between QTL and the environment.
 Linkage analysis and association mapping are the two most
commonly used methods for QTL mapping and exploiting
molecular markers in plant breeding involves finding a subset of
markers associated with one or more QTLs that regulate the
expression of complex traits.
 Many QTL mapping identified QTLs that explained a significant
proportion of the phenotypic variance and therefore, gave rise to
an optimistic assessment of the prospects of Markers Assisted
Selection (MAS).
 Objective is to provide an overview of current advances in QTL
analysis such as mapping population development, population
genetic structure of the mixture model, QTL mapping, factors
affecting the power of QTL mapping and importance of employing
MAS systems in crop improvement and marker-trait association
analysis using different statistical methods employed in molecular
plant breeding research activities.
 QTLs are derived from natural variation, the use of a wider range
of variations such as that found in wild species is important. In
addition, Introgression Lines (ILs) developed from wild species in
combination with Marker Assisted Selection should facilitate
efficient gene identification.
 Verification of putative quantitative trait loci (QTL) is an essential
step towards implementing the use of marker-assisted selection
(MAS) in cultivar improvement.