Summary:"A French hybrid of an aspen tree may one day rid water supplies of the industrial degreaser—and human carcinogen—trichloroethylene (TCE), one of the most common contaminants at toxic waste sites in the U.S. And the tiny, but tractable, plant Arabidopsis may mop up the residue of RDX, a military explosive blasted into the soils at firing ranges." said the article.
As we all know, plants are the Earth's good friends. They help to absorb carbon dioxide and, at the same time, give out oxygen by the process called photosynthesis. They improve the air quality and give people the impression of freshness.
Researchers are trying their best to make good use of plants. They tried to put a cytochrome (an enzyme) known as P450 2E1 into plants. They used a bacteria to insert the genetic code for this cytochrome isolated from rabbits into the genetic instructions of the hybrid aspen tree, which belongs to the poplar family.
The result turned out to be really amazing. The aspen sucked the contaminant out of the water much faster than unaltered aspen and removed a lot of it by the time they were done drinking the poison. It also boosted the tree's ability to absorb the chloroform left over after cleaning drinking water, the industrial solvent carbon tetrachloride and even vinyl chloride. They could also remove benzene, a known human carcinogen, 10 times faster than control plants.
Biologists working with the Arabidopsis plant, a flowering weed, successfully demonstrated that inserting a variant of cytochrome P450 isolated from battlefield bacteria allowed it to break down the RDX left behind in the soil of firing ranges. Such altered Arabidopsis, when drinking RDX-laced water, removed 90 to 97 percent of it.
The goal right now is to create trees that provide a low-cost option for cleaning contaminated groundwater and sites that might not otherwise be purified due to the expense of chemical and microbial treatments.
Reflections:
Right now, we are studying the topic of gene technology. We are learning about gene engineering. This article is somehow also related to transgene. Researchers inserted genetic code for cytochrome into the genetic instructions of the hybrid aspen tree. From this, we can see that gene engineering is really useful in our lives.
Gene technology benefits the environment, which in turn benefits us. According to the article, the genetically modified aspen proved capable of removing benzene, a human carcinogen, from air or trichloroethylene, the most common contaminant at U.S. toxic waste sites, from water while the Arabidopsis plant could break down the RDX left behind in the soil of firing ranges and removed 90 to 97 percent of RDX when drinking RDX-laced water. All these transgenic trees provide us with a cleaner and more comfortable environment.
The technology nowadays does make our lives much easier and more convenient. I really hope that more discoveries of gene technology can further improve our daily lives. The thing we can do is to treasure the plants and try to discover more wonderful things from them.
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