Many take great interest in avoiding GMOs. Are tulips with tulip breaking virus GMOs?
Well, they are genetically modified, but by a natural process. So I’d say no.
But then again, that natural process can be deliberately induced by human action. Really, I think it just points up the silliness of the concept of distinguishing "GMO"s to begin with.
The virus-caused variegation that became famous in the 17th century (see: tulip mania) is not why they are variegated today; present day variegation is caused by ordinary selective breeding techniques.
Tulip virus wouldn’t be a genetic modification, but a disease.
I don’t think it’s an especially silly concept (misused, perhaps) - it seems fairly valid to distinguish between genetic changes happening as a result of natural or artificial processes - if the latter can include changes that could never occur naturally.
I’m not saying the conclusions people draw from such distinction are good and great.
This is my understanding as well. Present-day broken colors/variegated hues are not due to disease, but usual breeding techniques.
I don’t think the Overlords of GMO have gotten into ornamental horticulture yet to any extent.
There is a difference between selective breeding and genetic modification, although technically both are modifying the genetic material of the offspring. Offspring that are selectively bred could theoretically exist in nature. Genetic modification is the process of introducing genetic material from another organism into the DNA of the subject to create a desired trait. I did this last semester in Bio lab putting a jellyfish gene into a bacteria to make it glow in the dark.
Because of selective breeding techniques, there is little genetic variation in any of our crops anymore making them more vulnerable to insects and disease. Researchers are trying to find new ways to combat these issues.
I left some university course with the notion that virus was one of the tools of genetic engineering. Was that once the case? Are virus still used for genetic engineering?
GMOs have genetic changes that cannot happen naturally. That seems like a real and substantial distinction to me.
The problem is not old-fashioned (not GM) selective breeding, as such. The problem is monoculture–the prevalence of a single variety or cultivar, bred for whatever characteristics are thought most profitable, throughout a regional crop. If we widely used dozens of different varieties of each crop species (for example, including the ones now relegated to “heirloom” status), the overall crop would be more resilient, but each of those varieties has still been selectively bred.
Getting back to parrot tulips, am I the only one crushed to learn they no longer have some sort of benign infection?
Yes, monoculture was what I was getting at, but stated it inelegantly. Thanks for clarifying.
Viruses are commonly used as delivery agents for introduced genes. However, the viruses themselves have been modified from their original form, so they are also GMOs. GMOs used to creat more GMOs. To get the viral GMO, they most likely had to modify a bacterium first, so add another GMO link on the chain.
Non-modified viruses wouldn’t be considered GMO because the changes they induce are part of the normal life cycle of the organism. However, this is a slippery semantic slope..
So, supernaturally?
Do you think that is technical jargon or street jargon? Or is this just a personal opinion?
You could try the logic approach: We can’t stop the common cold in ourselves, so how in the world could a farmer prevent their livestock from ever getting infected with any sort of virus?
You could try legal principles: viruses predate genetic modification and even our awareness of dna.
Or you could use the emotional/personal approach: Would YOU want to be labelled a GMO because you once had a cold?
Genetic modifications occur in nature all the time. UV light damages DNA, leading to changes. Virus infection results in integration of the viral genome into the host genome. Some bacteria can take up stray DNA and incorporate it into their genomes. The list goes on and on.
To make regulation possible, we (scientists, regulators, etc.) think of genetically modified organisms as those that humans have purposefully modified using recombinant DNA technologies. Recombinant DNA is defined as “molecules that are constructed outside living cells by joining natural or synthetic DNA segments to DNA molecules that can replicate in a living cell, or (ii) molecules that result from the replication of those described in (i) above.” (link). Basically, sticking together two pieces of DNA that aren’t found together in nature. This can mean re-arranging an organism’s own DNA, giving it DNA from another organism, or giving it completely synthetic DNA.
So, a wild-type, unengineered tulip mosaic virus is not recombinant or GMO. A tulip infected with the virus is also not GMO, because the process of genetic modifcation that results from the infection has not been intentionally modified by humans.
It’s a slippery slope because introducing tulip mosaic virus into a line that hasn’t previously been infected does result in genetic changes that were intended by humans. But, the vehicle doing the modification (the virus) is not modified, it’s just doing what it’s always done. We (scientists, regulators, etc.) don’t consider that GMO, but one could easily make the argument that it is.
Is anybody going to bother explaining WTH “tulip breaking virus” means?
It’s a virus that infects tulips, causing the flowers to have broken bands of color instead of one solid color (and it eventually kills them, thus some of the original cultivars are now extinct, it is also illegal to sell infected tulips in many areas because it is considered a pest disease, so very few actual examples exist today).
Similar color effects in other flowers are caused be transposons or “jumping genes”, DNA bits and pieces that can move around in the genome of a cell, but unlike viruses, cannot leave the cell to infect other cells. There is a lot of genetic modification happening naturally .