Agricultural+Applications

**Agricultural Applications** by Amanda Blyth and Tyler Baker
__Agricultural Uses of DNA Technology__ Goal: try to improve agricultural productivity **__transgenic plants__: ** easier to develop than most animals because for many species, only need a single tissue cell to make an adult plan **Ti plasmid** (Agrobacterium tumefaciens): in nature it induces tumors in plants infected by the bacterium, vector used to introduce new genes into plant cells Past few years, around half of American crops of soybeans and corn have been grown from genetically modified seed Scientists are also using gene transfer to improve nutritional value of crop plants
 * __transgenic organisms__:** genomes carry genes from another species (used in experiments) and animals are created in vitro
 * goal of creating a transgenic animal is so then the animals can be created with better qualities
 * for example, a gene that would cause the development of larger muscles, or sheep with better quality wool
 * idea of an animal that is engineered to be a pharmaceutical "factory" where produce large amount of rare biological substance for med use
 * hormone
 * blood-clotting factor
 * integrates a segment of its DNA (known as T DNA) into chromosomal DNA of its host plant cells
 * problem of Ti plasmid: only dicots (plants with two seed leaves) susceptible to infection by Agrobacterium
 * for example, development of a transgenic rice plant that produces yellow rice grains containing beta-carotene, which body uses to make Vitamin A


 * in Southeast Asia, 70% of children under the age of 5 suffer from vitamin A deficiency

ordinary rice versus genetically modified rice http://www.loe.org/images/090130/silver_gold.gif