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Team:Harvard/fences/safety
From 2010.igem.org
safety
Genetic Containment
Our fence construct ensures prevention of the spread of foreign DNA through a series of switches negatively regulating the life of the engineered plant. The default state of an iGarden plant in the natural environment will be immediate death upon commencement of germination. Any seeds that may blow into a nearby garden or the wild will not be viable. Even should a plant grown in the iGarden find its way out of the garden after it is full grown as soon as it is removed from the presence of the fence compound methoxyfenozide a fully or partially grown plant will die fairly quickly and any seeds produced outside the garden will also not be viable.
Barnase
While Barnase (in the absense of Barstar) is lethal to any cell in which it is produced, studies have shown that Barnase producing plants pose no risk to consumers. Studies have consistently shown that no detectable amounts of Barnase are found in the tissue of plants containing the Barnase encoding gene. This should come as no surprise, as any cell producing Barnase even for a short amount of time will very quickly cease to exist. It has also been shown that Barnase shows no similarity to any known allergens or toxins, and if ingested will be inactivated in the stomach due to the low pH.
Carver J, and Walker WA (1995). The role of nucleotides in human nutrition. The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry 6: 58-72. Information on RNA in food and its digestion.
Delaney B, Astwood JD, Cunny H, Conn RE, Herouet-Guicheney C, Macintosh S, Meyer LS, Privalle L, Gao Y, Mattsson J, Levine M; ILSI International Food Biotechnology Committee Task Force on Protein Safety (2008). Evaluation of protein safety in the context of agricultural biotechnology. Food and Chemical Toxicology 46 Suppl 2:S71-97. Epub 2008 Feb 2.
FDA (1996). Biotechnology Consultation Note to the File BNF No. 000031. March 15, 1996. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~rdb/bnfm031.html accessed Jan 7 2009. “The corn line containing transformation event MS3 and its progeny are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from conventional corn varieties.”
Hérouet C, Esdaile DJ Mallyon BA Debruyne E, Schulz A, Currier T, Hendrickx K, van der Klis R-J and Rouan D (2005). Safety evaluation of the phosphinothricin acetyltransferase proteins encoded by the pat and bar sequences that confer tolerance to glufosinate-ammonium herbicide in transgenic plants. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 41:134–149.
