Uptake of food transgenes by guy bacteria

[Sebastian Cocioba]

I'm giving a talk on food GMOs at the school of visual arts in NYC this weekend and I am preparing some slides and asking people for opinions and whatnot. One conversation I've had had to do with the uptake of transgenes (Bt toxin in particular) by gut bacteria and subsequent expression of said transgene. Now, since I make circuits for plant expression on a daily basis (traditional cloning...sadly), I know that the go-to plant promoter CaMV 35s (cauliflower mosaic virus protein coat promoter region) will barely, if not at all, express in prokaria. The gene does come from bacteria and I am not sure it was codon optimized. That being said, uptake of DNA from the environment by wild type bacteria is commonplace during stress but due to the nature of the internal environment (stomatch/gut), lack of expression, and lack of viability of the Bt toxin in an acidic medium, I am almost certain eating raw GM foods will not produce tiny pesticide factories in the intestines of a human. Whats your thoughts? What are the chances of native gut flora uptaking the dna and expressing the particular protein?

P.S. the goal of the talk is to explain the process of how one produces a transgenic plant, some of the most common traits being introduced, the % acreage of gmo vs traditional farming, the intended function of said transgenes, and how one can process samples of their own foods and test for one element of transgenic crops at home using second hand or open PCR machines, hackerspaces, etc.. Its more for awareness than promoting a side so I don't want to really touch on health issues, environmental damage, etc Just an educational talk explaining the techniques and tests available.

Thanks in advance!

[leaking pen]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally bacterial uptake is only of other bacterial dna, right?  have we seen bacteria update plant dna in other circumstances?

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 2:05 PM, leaking pen <itsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally bacterial uptake is only of other
> bacterial dna, right? have we seen bacteria update plant dna in other
> circumstances?

Well you have to consider that Bt-toxin is 'originally' (it all came
from some RNA soup, way back whenever, or whatever) from a bacteria,
hacked to work in plants.

So I think this is more a question on horizontal transfer mechanisms,
which we know something about, and also about gene-shuffling. You'd
need to pick up the Bt from plants, then keep it around long enough so
it would shuffle some way or another to a working promoter...
requiring also it wasn't otherwise broken in the shuffle.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Also keep in mind that the Bt toxin is just a protein, and it's a protein that is highly specific for certain ranges of insects. So even if there is horizontal transfer to you gut bacteria, those gut bacteria are not going to get any benefit from it, so they'll probably just lose it again. And any Bt toxin that does get produced will likely get digested along with all the other proteins passing through your gut. And of course, the "toxin" itself is entirely non-toxic to humans, which is why organic farmers are allowed to spray purified Bt toxin on their crops!

You also have to look at this against the background of what other genes are undergoing horizontal transfer all around us every single second. Bt is a common soil bacteria, and it is far more likely that wild type Bt bacteria would be swapping genes with other wild type soil bacteria on food, than that your gut bacteria will take up the genes from engineered plants. Also, your gut bacteria get bombarded with DNA from billions of other genes, including ones that could be far more useful to those bacteria than a narrow-spectrum insecticide from a soil bacteria.

So yeah, in theory there's a minuscule chance that your gut bacteria will take up this foreign gene, but you probably wouldn't even notice if they did and you should be far, far more worried about aquiring a bacteria with a multidrug resistance gene.

Kinda like how there is a minuscule chance of aquiring Ebola in the US, but your chance of dying from the flu this year is about 10,000 times higher...

[Cathal Garvey]

Not to mention that, meta-level, the fact that they're concerned about
HGT in the gut sort of proves the point that transgenics isn't a
man-made phenomenon but rather something entirely natural.

Put another way, if HGT absorption of genes-for-stuff in the gut is a
problem, then worry about all those entirely natural genes that would
kill you if overexpressed there, instead of things like Bt or even
ampicillin resistance. Plants are full of natural pesticides far more
toxic than the ones we use in agriculture, yet we've never heard of a
gut bacterium cloning those genes and killing us, yet.

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[SC]

Patrick is exactly right.

 

One thing that people forget is that live Bt-expressing bacteria are sprayed on organic crops.  While the odds of a gut bacterium taking up genes from either source is slim, and even if they did wouldn't have any effect on the human body, it is more likely they would pick it up from another bacterium and not from a plant.  So, you can tell your students that if their goal is to avoid Bt-expressing gut bacteria they should avoid organic crops and opt for the GMOs.  Just sayin'.

 

If you are discussing how GMOs are made, you may want to point out all the genetically-modified crops which don't qualify as GMOS.  A "GMO" is defined as an organism which has had a gene inserted from another species.  This definition doesn't include gene knockouts, genes inserted from other cultivars of the same species, and most significantly organisms created by random mutagenesis.  In RM, seeds are irradiated with high levels of gamma irradiation until amost all are dead.  The survivors are mostly stunted and wonky, but once in a while you get one that shows increased yield or some other good trait.   There are thousands of cultivars of many types of crops which have been produced this way.  Because of the narrow legal definition, none of them count as GMOs.  It is unlikely anyone born after 1970 has ever eaten a non-RM wheat or soy cultivar. 

 

Good luck with your talk.  I hope you post here afterwards and let us know how it went.

 

Stacy

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

A knock-out IMHO is as much a GMO as a GFP plant. Both differ from wild-type.  Whatever "wild-type" means, because you are never ever going to find 2 offsprings of a plant with the same genetic sequences (except for clones). 

[leaking pen]

well yes, but its inserted into the plant dna.  Its not going to form as a plasmid.  So i don't think the bacteria would see it AS bacterial DNA. 

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 5:10 AM, 'SC' via DIYbio
<diy...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> This
> definition doesn't include gene knockouts, genes inserted from other
> cultivars of the same species, and most significantly organisms created by
> random mutagenesis. In RM, seeds are irradiated with high levels of gamma
> irradiation until amost all are dead. The survivors are mostly stunted and
> wonky, but once in a while you get one that shows increased yield or some
> other good trait. There are thousands of cultivars of many types of crops
> which have been produced this way. Because of the narrow legal definition,
> none of them count as GMOs. It is unlikely anyone born after 1970 has ever
> eaten a non-RM wheat or soy cultivar.

On that note, I posted on this a while ago here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/diybio/T1YlqUv74gU

The most interesting finding I came across was an article with this title:
'Microarray analyses reveal that plant mutagenesis may induce more
transcriptomic changes than transgene insertion'
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3640.full

So the 'GMO' (as in 'normal' insertional GMO that the public
only/mainly knows of) is more like it's ancestors than the
non-commonly-referred-to-as-GMO mutants. And they sell these products
at places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (upscale food markets that
target 'natural' products)!

Have a search of the radio mutant database for some common things:
mvgs.iaea.org/Search.aspx

[SC]

Nathan,

Yes, exactly.   This situation leaves me slightly amused, especially when international trade of agricultural products is so hugely effected by the definition of GMO, and so few people seem to understand the big picture.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

How can we educate the public? Is it possible to do so?  And I mean the entire public at once, not just the guys who visit biohackerspaces (some of which already know that anyway)? 

[SC]

Don't waste your time.  People are convinced of some giant conspiracy they would just accuse you of being a shill for Monsanto. 

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

I kinda wish I would be on Monsanto's paylist, because people think I am anyway :P 

Wouldn't be too bad to have sufficient money for a few DNA synthesis'es.  

On the other hand, of course, choosing your projects yourself is what most of us wanna do. For the benefit of humanity, not for profit-maximizing....

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Mega [Andreas Stuermer]
<masters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I kinda wish I would be on Monsanto's paylist, because people think I am
> anyway :P
> Wouldn't be too bad to have sufficient money for a few DNA synthesis'es.

And they are industry-leaders in general, even if they're not a very
friendly player.

[SC]

It's funny - Dow and DuPont are also big developers of GMO crops, but you never hear poeple complaining about them.  I guess they just keep a low profile.  I bet they're amused about Monsanto's bad PR though.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Did I mention it before? Monsanto was said to do active lobbyism against GMO so that the rules stay very stringent and small companies cannot afford deregulation of their crop...? So in that sense they would be arch enemies of each open source GMO

[Brian Degger]

Said? By who?
Might be easier to funnel money into  the hard core anti gmo GreenPeace.

On 1 Dec 2014 08:13, "Mega [Andreas Stuermer]" <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:

Did I mention it before? Monsanto was said to do active lobbyism against GMO so that the rules stay very stringent and small companies cannot afford deregulation of their crop...? So in that sense they would be arch enemies of each open source GMO

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[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Don't remember. I think it was my biotech proff, gotta ask him.

[Cathal Garvey]

Dow/Pont haven't made such a dedicated effort to be hated, though. Suing
individuals for patent infringement is nearly unheard of outside of GM
crops; patents are used in most fields for killing competition and
destroying *inventors*, not end-users.

Monsanto's use and precedent for patents as weapons against potential
customers (those who didn't pay this year, but probably would in the
future) is bizarre, and has earned it the reputation it deserves. Sadly,
it's also earned "GMOs" (a pejorative, I'll remind ye all) an undeserved
bad reputation, because the prodigious litigiousness of Monsanto has
nothing to do with the technology used to develop its crops.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 5:27 AM, Cathal Garvey
<cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
> Dow/Pont haven't made such a dedicated effort to be hated, though. Suing
> individuals for patent infringement is nearly unheard of outside of GM
> crops; patents are used in most fields for killing competition and
> destroying *inventors*, not end-users.
>
> Monsanto's use and precedent for patents as weapons against potential
> customers (those who didn't pay this year, but probably would in the future)
> is bizarre, and has earned it the reputation it deserves. Sadly, it's also
> earned "GMOs" (a pejorative, I'll remind ye all)

That may be the public opinion at-large, but I for one never thought
that. The earliest I can remember anything about GMOs was with Dolly
the sheep, and I can only remember thinking how cool it was. That has
been my opinion of GMOs ever since. So I don't think it is necessarily
a pejorative term, but indeed what most 'common' folks probably think.

[Matthew Pocock]

Under European legislation, GMO is specific to an organism that has a DNA genome that has been artificially modified to incorporating DNA that would not have been likely to make it in 'naturally'. It explicitly rules out deletions, knockouts/downs. em and chemical irradiation, hybridisaion and so on. It exclusively covers *additional* material.

As always, IANAL.

Matthew

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[Cathal (Phone)]

As a linguistic device, it's significantly younger than "Genetic Engineered Organisms" (source: ngrams), and if you think about the difference it's clear that one carries connotations of unguided or unintelligent work. Genetic Engineering is done by engineers: people who are rigorous and understand what they're working with. Modification could be anything! For better, worse, unknown!

So, I tend to view "GMO" as an enabling sort of minor pejorative. It's a form of language which prejudices the listener, making further anti-science propaganda more appealing.

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Here people talk of "genetically manipulated organism" which is even a step closer to saying "those evil mad scientists in the ivory tower want to take over the world and wanna poison us" 

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Maybe we can use the power of language and talk of GEOs instead of GMOs. Can you even talk of engineered organisms if you just change one single gene (out of 20000)? It's like saying I "created" a table by hammering a nail into an old table. 

Hm, just foound out that we don't even have a positive word in German. Engineered - there is no verb. 

» Übersetzung(en) tabellarisch anzeigen | immer » Übersetzungen mit gleichem Wortanfang » eng | engine | engineer | engineered VERB   to engineer | engineered | engineered engineering | engineers engineered {adj} {past-p} technisiert  ---- never used, doesn't fit genetically engineered {adj} <GE> gentechnisch verändert   --- verändert means "modified, changed"  well-engineered {adj} ausgereift     ---  ausgereift means "well done", but cannot be used in the active form engineered wood {sg} [wood-based materials] Holzwerkstoffe {pl}material        literally "wood woking material" engineered (timber) board Vollholzplatte {f}constr. engineered (timber) boards Platten {pl} auf Vollholzbasis engineered safety feature <ESF> sicherheitstechnische Einrichtung {f} [z. B. Kerntechnik]tech. engineered wooden floor Fertigparkettboden {m}constr. engineered wooden flooring Fertigparkett {n} genetically engineered food genmanipulierte Nahrung {f}FoodInd. genetically engineered foods gentechnologisch erzeugte Nahrungsmittel {pl}FoodInd. pre-engineered system [compact system] Kompaktsystem {n}

On Wednesday, November 12, 2014 11:01:40 PM UTC+1, Sebastian wrote:

[Alec Nielsen]

Reclaim the connotation: Genetically enhanced organisms :)

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[Cathal (Phone)]

I think Andreas is right that even describing it at the "organism" level is incorrect, and pandering. We should talk about Genetically Engineered Traits, because we're not making a whole new, unknown and poorly-understood "organism", we're adding a trait to a well known organism.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

This food contains genetically enhanced organism. I kinda like that. 

[SC]

Maybe whenever possible we could refer to the organism directly, such as "drought-resistant soy."  It's more likely to be interpreted as something positive.

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Indeed.

Genetic engineered should be seen as subclass of genetically modified, which also contains natural breeding (alters the genome) and mutagenesis breeding

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

But adressing it by its real name is great. Drought resistant soy - nice. Insecticide producing maize? Decide yourself. Etc

[SC]

Yeah, that last one would need a little marketing...  :)

[Brian Degger]

It's all good.....we don't engineer or modify anymore ..
We design synthetically...and make sym(biotic)bio to solve the problems of today, tommorow.

On 1 Dec 2014 22:46, "'SC' via DIYbio" <diy...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Yeah, that last one would need a little marketing...  :)

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[scoc...@gmail.com]

First off,pardon going off topic and/or misinterpreting your response as literal if you meant sarcasm.

For no the most part all we are doing is copying natural genes and printing their sequences in a convenient arrangement that would otherwise be too time consuming to assemble manually. Not much different from traditional cloning from genomic DNA. Sure you can add different motifs and elements but even those are seldom far from the natural source, with some exceptions of course. I can't tell what the difference is or why people are making it seem like synthetic biology, in its current state, is like writing genetic code from scratch with no references and people are making completely novel life forms and proteins across the board. So many new members to the list want to learn more about synthetic biology but all we can really offer them is fancy genetic text editors and the stark realization that, for the most part, they can't afford to order their constructs anyway. Not to go off topic or open up an old can of worms but why not promote more affordable, albeit time consuming processes like traditional cloning? At least its accessible...


Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D

---

From: Brian Degger
Sent: ‎12/‎2/‎2014 12:59 PM
To: diy...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [DIYbio] Re: Uptake of food transgenes by guy bacteria

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