--Dan Worley in Sunny Puerto Rico--
>Errors-To: <rwolfson@concentric.net>
>X-Sender: rwolfson@pop3.concentric.net
>Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 15:08:47 -0500
>To: info@natural-law.ca
>From: Richard Wolfson <rwolfson@concentric.net>
>Subject: misc GE News
>X-UIDL: 849ff195d825f368390de8dff75c0675
>
>Scientists create genetically engineered frog
>By Maggie Fox
> WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) -
>Genetic engineering works in sheep, rabbits and mice but scientists have so
>far been unable to get it to work in frogs --until now, California
>researchers reported on Thursday. A team at the University of California,
>San Diego said they had found a way to introduce foreign genes into a frog,
>at least temporarily. Reporting in the journal Nature Biotechnology,
>they said they had managed to introduce genes into African clawed toads for
>a fluorescent protein normally produced by jellyfish.
>
>"This technique is not what we call a stable transgenic. Right now we don't
>know that the DNA is actually integrated into the chromosome," Dr. Sylvia
>Evans, a specialist in heart development, said in a telephone interview.
>The approach was more like gene therapy, in which a gene is temporarily
>introduced into cells but does not become a permanent part of an animal's
>genes. But it will allow scientists to produce transgenic frogs --
>frogs that carry working genes from other species -- for experimental work.
>"The frog is the choice system for developmental biology," Evans said.
>"The frog has a relatively large embryo that develops outside the body. You
>can do all sorts of cut and paste experiments -- you can cut out bits of
>the embryo and see what develops," she added. Also, frogs are cheaper
>and easier to work with than mice. "Say you wanted to study a protein's
>potential for a drug. You could then use this method as the initial
>screening," Evans said.
>
>She said no one really knew why frogs, which are relatively simple animals,
>defy genetic engineering. Transgenic mice, sheep and cows bred to carry
>human genes produce human proteins for companies such as Scotland's PPL
>Therapeutics which has created cloned and transgenic animals like Dolly the
>cloned sheep and Polly, a transgenic clone.
>
>Evans thinks the new method might work in other animals as well, such as
>zebra fish.
>
>Her team used DNA from an adeno-associated virus. Specifically they used
>some of the tools that such viruses use to break into the cells they infect
>--in this case the inverted terminal repeats (ITRs).
>
>They attached these ITRs to a green fluorescent protein gene from a
>jellyfish and injected it into fertilized toad eggs. The gene worked
>right up to the tadpole stage, they said. The toad tadpole does not glow
>but the fluorescence can be seen in cells under the microscope. REUTERS
>
> ======#======
>Potatoes made to carry cholera vaccine
>
> By Maggie Fox WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) U.S. researchers said on
>Thursday they had genetically engineered potatoes to carry a vaccine
>against cholera. Unlike earlier attempts to get potatoes to produce
>vaccines, this one lasts even if the potato is cooked -- creating the
>possibility that people could get their inoculations from a plate of french
>fries.
>
>
>Comment: What happens if these potatoes get mixed up with commercial
>potatoes, and we all start getting extra doses of cholera vaccine in our
>food? --Richard
>
>_________________________________________________________
>Richard Wolfson, PhD
>Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
>for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
>Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
>500 Wilbrod Street
>Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
>email: rwolfson@concentric.net
>
>Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
>contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
>previous genetic engineering news items
>Subscription fee to genetic engineering news is $35 for 12 months
>See website for details.
>__________________________________________________________
>__________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
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