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Biotech Science

World's First True Blue Rose, Thanks to Biotech 81

Posted by timothy from the saves-one-item-at-weddings dept.
FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers from CSRIO achieved the holy grail of rose breeders since 1840 - breeding a blue rose. Using RNAi technology, they knocked down the red pigment gene and introduced a blue pigment producing one. The result is the world's first true blue rose - no word about whether it'll be commercially available or not. A factsheet describing the technique and a detailed summary are available."
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World's First True Blue Rose, Thanks to Biotech More

World's First True Blue Rose, Thanks to Biotech

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  • Well... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) *
    That's neat.

    Hope they sell some at an affordable price. My grandmother would get a real kick out of it.

  • A rose by any other genetic code... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @12:56PM (#12156600) Homepage Journal
    If they've genetically modified it, is it still a rose?
    • yes.

      it looks like a rose, it would belong to the same family of flowers, it is a rose. if they had breeded it by regular means.. would it have been a rose?

    • Re:A rose by any other genetic code... (Score:5, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @01:40PM (#12157081) Homepage Journal
      The way of talking about this that is in current vogue among biologists seems to be "cladistic analysis". All life forms are classified in a tree structure representing evolutionary pedigree. This is probably a gross simplification, but every genetic innovation creates a new branch (or clades). Some would argue that traditional taxonomic categories like genera and species are meaningless.

      If you replace the red gene with a blue gene, you have developed a new clades. It is still substantially a rose, whether or not it smell sweet. Of course your mom might not call this thing a rose if it smelled like a skunk, so YMMV.
      • Yea, but where do you classify it if you take two flowers from different branches and merge their genes. Where does the new plant go?
      • Im a systematic biologist and do research using cladistics. Cladistics is about finding the phylogenetic tree (or pedigree) that requires the minimum amount of evoultionary events.

        Obligatory Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]

        A rose with a gene replaced would still be a rose, as it continues to share so many charcteristics of the unmanipulated rose such as flower morphology, chromosome number, leaf symmetry etc.
        • Thanks for the reference, but it still is not very clear.

          Is horse a differet clades than a donkey? I'm guessing probably so. Is a Red Wolf a different clades than a Coyote? Hard to say -- they hybridize after all to produce fertile offspring. Is the Eastern Yellow Bellied Sapsucker a different clades than a Western? Probably not.

          Clades seem to me to be as much as social convention as species, only with a somewhat more sound theoretical basis for selecting features to consider. My impression is that geno
    • I seem to be quoting the bard a lot on slashdot today, so let's get it over with:

      'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
      Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? That which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet.
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title.

    • What's in a name? That which we call a rose; By any other genetic strucure would smell as sweet.
  • I could draw an image of it too... You would think that with the technology of the Internet and all, and since they are talking about some tangible item that supposedly exists, couldn't we have a picture? Even a forgery would do.

    • Here! (Score:5, Informative)

      by PhilHibbs ( 4537 ) <snarks@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @01:00PM (#12156641) Journal
      http://www.physorg.com/news3581.html [physorg.com]
      • Doh! I suppose I could have done a search for it, but.. well... I am a bit lazy.

      • Re:Here! (Score:3, Informative)

        by PhilHibbs ( 4537 )
        Probably a fake, though, considering this [rentmyhouse.ch] says copyright 2003
      • that picture looks colorized after it was taken. I believe the current breed of blue roses aren't yet as bright in color as the red ones are. This picture is to be taken with a grain of salt.

      • not real (Score:3, Informative)

        by boarder ( 41071 )
        That pic is probably not real, as TFA specifically says:

        "although the prototype is pale mauve, it is the first rose in the world with the genetic potential to produce 'true blue' roses, spanning the spectrum from palest blue to Mediterranean blue, or even navy blue."

        and this:

        "The new rose is an attractive shade of mauve, similar to the current generation of mauve-lilac roses like 'Blue Moon' and 'Vol de Nuit'. But where these cultivars express cyanidin, and are thus incapable of yielding blue flower

      • From the article that you linked:

        "The new rose is an attractive shade of mauve, similar to the current generation of mauve-lilac roses like 'Blue Moon' and 'Vol de Nuit' ... the new rose, with further 'tweaking', has the genetic potential to be truly blue. "

        The picture there, while it looks amazing, has almost certainly been color-enhanced and is probably not at all what this rose actually looks like.

        If you look closely, it appears even the *leaves* are blue... It's likely just a photoshopped stock photo

  • oh really? (Score:3, Funny)

    by St. Arbirix ( 218306 ) <matthew.townsendNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @12:57PM (#12156603) Homepage Journal
    I guess that puts us just that much closer to authentic blue hair.
  • I want some blue roses for a red lady.

  • They did not "breed" a blue rose, they messed with the genes to make a blue rose, I am sure most breeders would consider this cheating.

  • How I long for the Blues... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @12:59PM (#12156633)
    Where's the picture? Is this a Vaporware Gene?

  • Roses are red... (Score:5, Funny)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @12:59PM (#12156634) Homepage
    Violets are blue Now thanks to biotech Roses are too
  • It seems kind of like cheating.
    The gene for the blue pigment is presumably from another organism; they could equally make them some other colour, or make them glow in the dark (bioluminescence has been "ported" to organisms such as mice before :-).

    This would be more impressive if it was done by selective breeding...

    Still, could be the first really mass-produced "novelty" GM organisms (anyone buy one of those fish? Thought not).
    • as someone who actually works in a fish store ... let me assure you if one more person asks for the fish that "glows in the dark" I'm going to explode into a zillion little bitty pieces. AFAIK The reason you never actually see them is that the company who made them only released one sex of them and then only 500,000 were sold to the public. Its amazing how someone can take the cheapest fish we sell (zebra danio, $0.79) and charge all the way up to $15 for it. I don't even think they intended to sell them
    • It seems kind of like cheating.


      The gene for the blue pigment is presumably from another organism

      Dude, they have bred goats which produce spider silk in their milk and pigs which produce cells useful in some cellular research in their sperm, not to mention 'corn' which is so modified and invasiveas to be a huge problem for neighboring farmers. (Sorry, no links handy)

      You'll be hearing more about this stuff, and who knows what we'll call 'em.
    • OK, I might not pay that much more for a blue rose, but a blue rose that glows in the dark... now that sounds like an interesting idea to try...

  • Poster hasn't RTFA (Score:3, Informative)

    by SCull ( 115326 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @01:00PM (#12156649)
    no word about whether it'll be commercially available or not.

    Go back and RTFA:

    Commercial availability

    Florigene has already successfully created blue carnations using gene technology and these have been available in Australia since 1996.

    It will be at least 3 years before blue roses will be commercially available in Australia, pending approval from the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator for their commercial release.

  • I'll pass. (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    I am waiting until they can manage day-glo colors.
  • How about a picture of THE STINKING ROSE!! PROVE IT! Illustrations don't cut the mustard...

    Oh, this is /. How about a screenshot of a blue rose.

    • RTFA (Score:1)

      by boarder ( 41071 )
      Here is the post I made to an earlier request for photos:
      my post [slashdot.org]

      Basically, they now have the chance to produce blue roses but haven't actually done it yet. The new roses are mauve.

  • So, what does a blue rose symbolize anyway? (Score:4, Funny)

    by acidblue ( 716452 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @01:09PM (#12156745) Homepage
    I think we should have a vote on this one. How about: 1) "Have a bad day" 2) "I'm breaking up with you" 3) "This rose cost a sh** load of cash, you better like it" 4) "I still don't want to marry you, so instead of a ring..." 5) "I am red/blue colorblind and I still don't care about roses"
  • ... this new species gets released into the wild, cross-breeds with existing roses, then suddenly purple roses start showing up all over the place!

  • ...too bad they couldn't do it by breeding alone.

  • The perfect gift (Score:4, Funny)

    by NarcolepticTerrorPoo ( 677069 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @02:39PM (#12157898)
    ...for you girlfriend with breast implants.

    This blue rose reminds me of you,
    Beautiful and artificial.

  • They use siRNA to turn off the color genes.

    SiRNA is a RNA that is maintained by the host completly seperate from the genome. It happens to compliment the RNA of the target gene and therefore inhibits expression.

    SiRNA is not stable long term. THese roses will slowly revert to the original levels of Red/Orange with blue tossed in as well.

    To make this permenent you will need to deactivate the color genes on the genome level rather than the cytoplasmic/transcription level.
    • It depends. If you transfect a stable, integrated form of siRNA, you get permanent effects. Its easy to do; all you need is a "gene" coding for an hairpin corresponding to both siRNA strands.

      Oh and I added a picture of the roses, for all those who wanted to see it.
      • siRNA is straight forward competitive inhibition.

        It works because it is cheap and fast to do.

        I did not intend to say that the siRNA sequence will no longer become functional, rather the blue rose will not breed true.

        Since the original colors genes are still intact AND stil expressed, once the siRNA is removed (say through breeding) the colors will once again appear.

        The ONLY way to make this line breed true (and therefore become a strain) is to either knock out the colors or prevent expression....it look
        • Well, yes and no. It's true that it would have been better for the folks who created this rose to work from a naturally occurring knock out rose -- you know, like any white variety?

          The problem is that breeding truely is nither important nor even desirable for a rose breeder. Roses are almost universally reproduced asexually by budding; most modern roses grow very poorly, if at all, on their own roots, and are patented only as single varieties. Commercially, then, a proparatable blue rose would be of neg

      • Even if a cell line has stable RNA interference of a certain gene, it is still not as stable as you would think.

        Introducing a plasmid containing a gene which codes for small hairpin RNA (shRNA) will lead to stable knockdown, but only if you continually select for the cells which are exhibiting this feature. Otherwise, for reasons as yet unknown, the cell will silence the shRNA producing gene that you introduced because it will somehow be recognized as foreign. So in a relatively blue rose, you will see a

  • Wait till they get the black rose perfected. Then the goth's will all love biotech. Can you imagine going into a lab with folks who look like they've been smacked in the face with a tackle box, wearing black finger nail polish, and trech coats genetically engineering so they can turn every flower black?
  • When I first saw the picture of the roses in TFA I immediately imagined some ostentatious pre-teen rose walking around a chocolate factory eating things she wasn't supposed to.
  • If I'm not mistaken, there was no pure red rose. The roses of the time were crossbred with a red asian flower to get the red hue available today. If anything this modified version is closer to the rose it was created from than a red rose itself.
  • Using RNAi technology,

    Now, i don't know where the marketing droids in these bio tech come from but they obviously are not up to date with the modern tech naming conventions. It should obviously be i-RNA

  • A truly blue rose has been the Holy Grail of rose breeders since 1840, when the horticultural societies of Britain and Belgium offered a prize of 500,000 francs to the first person to produce a blue rose.

    I guess the horticultural societies of Britain and Belgium owe the CSIRO 500,000 francs.

    • I guess the horticultural societies of Britain and Belgium owe the CSIRO 500,000 francs.

      Wow. I think they can buy a pack of cigarrettes for that much these days.
  • The result is the world's first true blue rose - no word about whether it'll be commercially available or not. "Commercial availability Florigene has already successfully created blue carnations using gene technology and these have been available in Australia since 1996. It will be at least 3 years before blue roses will be commercially available in Australia, pending approval from the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator for their commercial release." From the bottom of the first site. :-)
  • Smurfette managed this 20 years ago.
  • the technique and a detailed summary are available."

    a summary with detail huh?

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