Translated material
Bacteria-physics and green-pins
Pseudomonassyringae bacterium is harmful. Not for humans, but for the cultivated plants that a person eats. Unlike other pathogenic bacteria and microorganisms that use chemicals to extract food or penetration into juicy tissues, this bacterium uses physics.
As you know, when the temperature drops below zero on the Celsius scale, liquid water turns into ice. But not right away. In fact, it does not always freeze at lower temperatures. For plants, this means that small frosts are not afraid of them. So far, Pseudomonas Syringae bacterium does not appear nearby. And she appears as he lives on all plants.
While warm, it, harmless, is warming peacefully on the surface of the plant. When it is cold, it shows its harmful character. It's all about the specific weapons of this creation - a special membrane protein of a unique structure, a real miracle of evolution. Active centers, as it were, “build” water molecules in the order in which they should be in the crystal of ice. Ice crystallization centers can occur already at plus temperatures. Water freezes, tearing the tissues of the plant, and the pathogen reaches its goal.
The cell walls are torn to be torn by improvised ice daggers. Microbe receives food, and owners of strawberries, cherries, apple trees and everything else - a bunch of problems. Switching, from which a delicious fruit or berry, familiar to many gardeners, will never grow, is the case of the molecular hands of Pseudomonas Shingae. The bacterium, or rather the water tamed by it, is able to cause more serious damage, up to the death of the plant. It all depends on the combination of weather conditions and the abundance of microorganisms. The studies are convincingly shown that the more bacteria lives on the plant, the stronger the damage even from small frosts, while “sterile” plants can calmly endure quite serious cold.
How to deal with this misfortune? How to protect the crop from bacteria-physics? To treat fields with antibiotics? It is possible, but unproductive. And we will not achieve anything but resistance. Derive plants - murderers of microbes? Eh, if it were so easy.
Maybe create competition for them? Normal, healthy competition within the occupied ecological niche? Smell identical, but not owning the art of crystallization of water by the bacterium? You just need to “turn off” a single gene. Having taken by quantity, you can easily squeeze the "wild" analogue from the tightened places. After all, the smaller the “wild” population, the healthier the flowers of strawberries and apple trees. And the healthier the plants.
The necessary bacterium was obtained a long time ago, even at the dawn of genetic engineering, Advanced Genetic Sciences. An application for a test in the field was submitted back in 1983 and had been waiting for her permission for several years. Unlike many other developers of genetically modified microbes, the company managed to get its permission. In 1987, the first results appeared. Strawberries and potatoes treated with Frostban GM-bacteria are practically not affected by frosts, unlike plants in the control group. The technology should have appeared on the market already in 1990.
But did not appear. She did not arrange an audience, willingly amenable to any provocations. In a harmless microbe, the signs of the upcoming apocalypse were quickly found, predicting terrible consequences in the form of changes in ecosystems and climate. After all, a natural, not modified bacterium, indeed, as it turned out, plays a noticeable role, for example, in the formation of clouds. What if the clouds will disappear?
No, you can’t risk clouds. Public performances and government meetings, judicial claims and the very first attack of “green activists” in the history of mankind on the very first GM experimental field achieved their results. Problems were created where they were not. The attitude of society towards the emerging technology, which had already given the recombinant insulin to the world at that time, has become clearly negative. And interest in effective GM solutions has decreased both from consumers and developers.
Only one moment stubbornly did not want to notice the pleased winners who turned the "genetic risks." Deprived of the "crystallizing" protein representatives of Pseudomonas Shingae are found in nature and without any modifications. Mutations, it happens, “break” the gene encoding this protein. But an inferior bacterium, devoid of its main competitive advantage, cannot gain a foothold, flying around the light. He goes into his evolutionary nowhere. There, where the genetically modified Frostban bacteria went, released once into the fields in order of the experiment.
After all, this was the main advantage of the proposed solution - its fundamental security. It didn't work out. Humanity again managed to prevent the threat of slightly more effective agriculture. And it's not only about Frostban. Looking from the side of the public attitude, close to psychosis, correlating costs and risks, many developers of other very interesting and promising GM-bacteria simply refused to conduct their developments. Let those bacteria not save the world from hunger, but they, of course, could make it a little more comfortable and better. But it is so made on this planet - to make decisions on the basis of emotions and ignorance, but not reliable scientific data.
By the way, you can get the “crystallizing” squirrel isolated from the nature of “natural” bacteria, devoid of “crystallizing” protein. You can sprinkle strawberries with them - they will work. And no one will require certificates, will not show you permits, no one will scare anyone with the disappearance of the clouds. Indeed, in their name there is no combination of three “ominous” letters: “GMO”.
1. Http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/bacterial_nucleation_in_pseudomonas_syringae
2. Http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/testing-future