- What are transgenic organisms?
- Types of transgenic organisms
- How do you get a transgenic organism?
- Advantages of transgenic organisms
- Disadvantages of transgenic organisms
- Examples of transgenic organisms
We explain what transgenic organisms are, how they are classified and how they are obtained. Its advantages, disadvantages and examples.
What are transgenic organisms?
Transgenic organisms or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are known as all those living beings whose genetic material has been adulterated by human intervention as a result of genetic engineering. This may involve artificial selection (the controlled crossing of species) or insertion techniques genes in the genome of a species (known as transgenesis or cisgenesis).
Genetically modified organisms are usually microorganisms What bacteria or yeast, but also animal and plant species, which serve as input for experimental scientific studies, or as a source of the so-called transgenic foods, whose consumption It may well be a solution to the issue of hunger in the world, or a catastrophe for the biodiversity of the planet.
The production of this type of living creatures and its commercialization or worldwide distribution is under the control of what is established in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and, often, constitutes cases of reflection on the part of the community scientific and political regarding the ethical and moral positions that this type of genetic manipulation put on the table.
Types of transgenic organisms
In principle, we can distinguish three types of transgenic organisms produced today:
- Transgenic microorganisms. It's about yeasts, mushrooms and bacteria, generally used to obtain medical and food substances of great importance. Before this kind of techniques were discovered, for example, the production of insulin for human use was very difficult and expensive; but thanks to genetic manipulation, it can be obtained from bacteria whose genome has been manipulated to insert genes of protein human.
- Transgenic animals. The animals transgenics are usually intended for laboratory use, either for understanding the genetic dynamics of the life, or to obtain human proteins or transgenic foods. For example, after studying the growth hormone of mice and managing to manipulate it to obtain larger specimens, it was possible to generate larger bovines. mass and faster growth, to feed the meat industry more efficiently or generate cows with a higher milk-generating capacity, for the dairy industry.
- Transgenic plants. The plants transgenic are usually food crops, and they have been modified to maximize their fruit production, to resist environments more extreme or to products pesticides that used to harm them. Many of these transgenic species are harvested for the food industry. biofuel.
How do you get a transgenic organism?
Transgenic animals are unable to breed new individuals with their genome.
Cross or hybrid species have been common for a long time, especially in some fruit species (lemon, apple, etc.) and in the case of mules (donkey and horse hybrids). However, hybrids are always sterile, unable to breed new individuals with their genome.
Today there are various techniques to insert or delete genes in the genome of cells of a species, and make them heritable. On the one hand, the desired genes can be injected through specialized devices into the cell nucleus, or other living beings endowed with the ability to transfer genes, such as certain types of virus (lentivirus) and bacteria (such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens).
This type of transfer can occur between species that are very distant from each other, or more easily between species that are close, such as two varieties of potatoes.
Advantages of transgenic organisms
Transgenic organisms offer us the enormous advantage of being able to obtain biological or biochemical tools that would otherwise be difficult to obtain, which is extremely beneficial for the advancement of modern medicine, the pharmacological industry and for the technology from food.
Animal or plant species that produce more food more quickly may be the solution to problems of scarcity and hunger in the world, and also represent a great step forward in understanding the dynamics of the genetics and the inheritance by the biology.
Disadvantages of transgenic organisms
Not everything is perfect in the world of GMOs. On the one hand, the effects of transgenics on the Health Y feeding Humans are a matter of debate, since some claim that they could be directly linked to the increase in the incidence rate in various ailments and diseases, although they do not yet exist conclusions definitive on the matter.
On the other hand, the risk What modified species represent for natural species could be a huge blow to the planet's biodiversity. Large corporations that handle transgenic products such as genetically modified seeds to grow bigger and better with less Water, they do whatever it takes to introduce their products in the world market, guaranteeing immediate and profitable results to local producers. Thus, the modified seeds end up replacing the natural or unmodified variants, which is a competence unfair that could lead to extinction of variants of corn, wheat or sorghum that grow slower and yield less, but have been around for millions of years.
Examples of transgenic organisms
Some known examples of transgenic organisms are:
- The first genetically modified food was in 1994 the Flav Savr tomato, which decomposed at a much slower rate than the ordinary one, allowing its harvest closer to maturity (and not before, anticipating the shipping time), which gave them more flavor and more nutrients.
- Golden rice is manipulated to generate precursors of the vitamin A, which makes this grain a nutritionally reinforced food through genetic intervention.
- AquAdvantage salmon is a type of Atlantic salmon fish that has had genes from Pacific salmon and pollock inserted into it, for a larger version that grows year-round (and not just in summer Y spring).
- GM mosquitoes, resistant to malaria or dengue, were created in 2010 as part of the strategy eradication of this disease.