Weird New Fruits Could Hit Aisles Soon Thanks To Gene Editing (theguardian.com) 307
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Smooth or hairy, pungent or tasteless, deep-hued or bright: new versions of old fruits could be hitting the produce aisles as plant experts embrace cutting-edge technology, scientists say. While researchers have previously produced plants with specific traits through traditional breeding techniques, experts say new technologies such as the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 could be used to bring about changes far more rapidly and efficiently. Among the genes flagged in the new study in the journal Trends in Plant Science are those behind the production of a family of substances known as MYBs, which are among the proteins that control whether other genes are switched on or off.
"MYBs are great targets because they are central to several consumer traits or features like color, flavor [and] texture," said Andrew Allan, a co-author of the review from the University of Auckland whose own projects include working on red-fleshed apples and changing the color of kiwi fruits. "Russet skin in apple and pear [is linked to MYBs]. Hairs on peaches but not nectarines -- another type of MYB." Dr Richard Harrison, head of genetics, genomics and breeding at the horticultural organization NIAB EMR, who was not involved in the article, said tweaking MYB genes or the way such genes are themselves controlled was a fruitful approach. Gene-editing of MYB genes and other genes could bring a host of benefits, Harrison said, adding: "There is a large opportunity to improve the nutritional profile of fruits and vegetables in the future using gene-editing technology, as well as other techniques." Such techniques, he said, introduce the same sort of DNA changes as plant breeders have introduced by artificially selecting traits that cropped up through spontaneous DNA mutation -- but much faster. Next week, the European Court of Justice will decide if or how plants that have been gene-edited will be regulated, and whether they will be treated like genetically modified plants. In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will no longer regulate genetically altered plants, so long as the changes could have been produced through traditional plant-breeding techniques.
"MYBs are great targets because they are central to several consumer traits or features like color, flavor [and] texture," said Andrew Allan, a co-author of the review from the University of Auckland whose own projects include working on red-fleshed apples and changing the color of kiwi fruits. "Russet skin in apple and pear [is linked to MYBs]. Hairs on peaches but not nectarines -- another type of MYB." Dr Richard Harrison, head of genetics, genomics and breeding at the horticultural organization NIAB EMR, who was not involved in the article, said tweaking MYB genes or the way such genes are themselves controlled was a fruitful approach. Gene-editing of MYB genes and other genes could bring a host of benefits, Harrison said, adding: "There is a large opportunity to improve the nutritional profile of fruits and vegetables in the future using gene-editing technology, as well as other techniques." Such techniques, he said, introduce the same sort of DNA changes as plant breeders have introduced by artificially selecting traits that cropped up through spontaneous DNA mutation -- but much faster. Next week, the European Court of Justice will decide if or how plants that have been gene-edited will be regulated, and whether they will be treated like genetically modified plants. In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will no longer regulate genetically altered plants, so long as the changes could have been produced through traditional plant-breeding techniques.
Thanks to gene editing (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll have more stuff to avoid at the grocery store. Thanks Science!
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Or whatever. I actually don't think there's much of a market for broad variation like this; the market is finite and there are a lot of logistics problems with providing a lot of choice for a perishable item (even if GMO can extend the fact that fruit and veg has an inherent use by date, it's probably not going to remove it). People in a given area will like what they
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The best option for me, although inconvenient since I moved, is to find a frui
Re:Thanks to gene editing (Score:5, Insightful)
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This isn't putting fruit fly genes in your grapes, this is editing the grape genome with intention rather than depending on blind luck. The other produce at the store you're eating was mutated with radiation, unless you're only eating heirloom varieties.
Though even the heirloom varieties came from something else. Mutations all the way down.
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You know, one doesn't usually so readily admit to using hyperbolic bullshit with the sole intention of fear-mongering.... It's not traditionally a real solid foundation to start a debate upon.
Self-awareness is a good thing though. So, you know, props for that.
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This isn't putting fruit fly genes in your grapes, this is editing the grape genome with intention rather than depending on blind luck.
Great, so they're putting fruit fly genes in my grapes.... with intention. That's so much better. And and there's STILL a hefty load of blind luck, even with precise gene insertion via CRISPR and such. Unless someone out there has complete understanding of protein folding, methylation, gene suppression and activation, and all the freaky shit from epigenetics, then there's still guesswork. Don't pretend that the field of genetics has been solved.
The more advanced our abilities with genetic engineering ge
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Here's a non-GMO, non-radiated potato you'll want to avoid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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that does not make GMOs fundamentally wrong.
Right. Just like how guns aren't fundamentally wrong or evil. But it's still concerning when the evil sociopath gets his hands on one.
*Squints and looks over at Monsanto [wikipedia.org]...*
Bu yeah, GMOs have helped feed the world.
also unusal new odd birds (Score:2)
but what about strange new nuts?!
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I'll have more stuff to avoid at the grocery store. Thanks Science!
Screw that. I can't wait to eat an apple-flavored, mint-smelling apple-onion hybrid. All the good nutritional shit without the wince-inducing smell and taste.
Mutant fruit-veggies FTW!
Unlikely. (Score:5, Interesting)
People don't like change or unexpected tastes. There is a reason that green ketchup [mentalfloss.com] died.
A faaar better use would be to make healthy foods slightly more palatable without sacrificing it's high nutritional value. Sadly, I foresee this being used to make fruits far sweeter which would make them very unhealthy.
What we need the government to start doing is evaluating goods based on their heath impact and how addictive they are and then place a tax on the food that will later be used to pay for the healthcare you'll need from consuming them. Humans are bad a long-term decision making therefore turning the long-term decision into a short-term one helps people make better choices.
Re:Unlikely. (Score:4, Funny)
Humans are bad a long-term decision making?! Well, thank goodness we have a government chock full of humans to make our decisions for us!
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The only person that was hated more was the alternative.
Not new. I've been using my crispr for fruits (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing new about using crispr for fruits. I've been using my crispr for fruits and vegetables for a long time. The drawer next to the crispr is where I keep my cheese and stuff. Milk goes on the top shelf, eggs in door.
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You made my morning, good sir.
Re:Unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tastes of fruit and vege have changed a lot over the decades. Thing is: consumers don't buy based on taste, they buy based on appearance and consistency. Hence rather than cool new fruit with mind-boggling flavours we get amazing looking tomatoes that bounce without bruising and taste like compressed cardboard and disappointment.
My prediction: same with crispr. Not new fruit, just hardier, blander, more generic versions of what we have already.
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I have to disagree about taste (Score:2)
The story with tomatoes is in fact sad. However, the recent trend with apples is quite different. The Gala apple is a huge improvement over the Red Delicious (RD) in flavor, and has largely displaced it in markets. Plenty of new varieties of apples that are not quite as pretty as RD but are improved in texture and taste such as Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Jazz, are increasingly dominant. And these apples are being outstripped even now by even newer varieties such as Snapdragon, Ruby Frost, Sweet Tango, and S
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In theory they should be able to edit the flavor back into those pathetic tomatoes...
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Tastes of fruit and vege have changed a lot over the decades. Thing is: consumers don't buy based on taste, they buy based on appearance and consistency. Hence rather than cool new fruit with mind-boggling flavours we get amazing looking tomatoes that bounce without bruising and taste like compressed cardboard and disappointment.
That is not true for everything. I'm American and I have always lived in places that didn't have much of an apple industry. As a kid, there were 3 types of apples that could be bought in grocery stores where I lived.
1) Red Delicious - which is never delicious but it is certainly red. It's awful all the time. It looks great and it always tastes like a mush.
2) Yellow Delicious - which is marginally better than Red Delicious in that it might actually be possible to find some that don't taste like mus
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The only apple I like is an old german breed: Boskoop.
A little bit sour, but also sweet, nice flesh. Easy to store over a winter in a cellar.
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There are local varieties of strawberries that are significantly more tasteful than the more common store-bought variety grown and shipped from California. The reason these don't sell nation-wide is because they are much more delicate than the California strawberry variety, and thus are far less suitable for mass consumption.
I think it would be fantastic if gene modification were able to combine the hardiness of the common California strawberry with the more intense flavors of our local varieties. Yes, th
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I have fond memories of laying in a patch of cut grass at my grandparents' farm picking the tiny wild strawberries that grew there. They were intensely sweet like condensed strawberries, but only about the size of a pencil eraser. Too soft to do anything with but pick with child fingers and lick off the mushed flesh and sweet juice.
If that flavor could be put into a more solid berry of a reasonable size....that'd destroy the current strawberry market.
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A faaar better use would be to make healthy foods slightly more palatable without sacrificing it's high nutritional value. Sadly, I foresee this being used to make fruits far sweeter which would make them very unhealthy.
they are already adjusting the taste of sprouts for example, to make them more 'likable'. that is just plain stupid.
in the end we will end up with everything tasting the same, taking to joy out of eating.
and why is this even a problem? if you don't like sprouts, don't eat them, it's not as if somebody forcing you (if yes, are you less then 6 years old?).
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What we need the government to start doing is evaluating goods based on their heath impact and how addictive they are and then place a tax on the food that will later be used to pay for the healthcare you'll need from consuming them.
Two problems with that. First is that we are pretty abysmal at determining what is healthy or what is not. The "healthy" eating habits of a few years back of heavy carbohydrate consumption with very low fat turned out to be not so healthy for people. I'm one of those people who have to limit my carb intake. That so called healthy diet is anything but to me. Tried a vegetarian routine, and screwed up my metabolism for over a year.
The second is that as long as there are people there will be people staking
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On the ketchup thing, ketchup was originally (in the 17th century) a fermented fish sauce. In the 18th century the primary ingredient in ketchup was mushrooms. Tomato ketchup is relatively new, appearing in the 19th century.
The very history of tomato ketchup disproves the idea that people don't like change; the truth is people vary by the degree to which they seek out and enjoy novel experiences. But I think there's a kind of uncanny valley effect when something isn't quite different enough to seem new
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A faaar better use would be to make healthy foods slightly more palatable without sacrificing it's high nutritional value. Sadly, I foresee this being used to make fruits far sweeter which would make them very unhealthy.
How about tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes? That would be a treat.
What we need the government to start doing is evaluating goods based on their heath impact
The government has been wrong about roughly 100% of their dietary advice in the past. There's really no worse track record of any mix of science and government in American history, from irrational panics to blatant corruption (remember the food pyramid that was all about the bread?). You want more of such nonsense?
I have an alternative proposal: accept that freedom includes the right to make decision that you think are bad.
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People don't like change or unexpected tastes.
People don't like change, but unexpected tastes are part of the great wonders of the world. You can see this in action down the road from me where a vinegar and oil shop sells these two very common products in literally hundreds of different flavours. We experiment with taste in every possible way. Next time you cook a stake before you throw it on the BBQ rub some coffee grinds on the outside. It's an unexpected and WONDERFUL flavour.
Re: Unlikely. (Score:2)
There is no reason to reinvent food, just get rid of all the junk food and GMO. Nobody fucking wants it.
I'm always astounded by the number of geniuses who want to ban things which nobody wants. Maybe next you can ban porn on the internet, because nobody wants that either.
Re: Unlikely. (Score:2)
Re: Unlikely. (Score:3)
Totally. No need to ban cellphones, just put "these devices emit radiation" stickers on them. Nobody will buy them and we'll all go back to using landlines.
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No need to ban GMO. Just clearly label it. No one will buy it, and the frankenfarmers will go out of business.
What is the definition of genetically modified?
I can't think of any thing that any one eats that is in it's pure original gene structure.
I suppose the closest we can get would be to subsist on algae. But that isn't very close.
Wheat, corn, soy have all been heavily modified. Some to the point where they cannot survive without human intervention.
You'll go off about gene spicing and microscopic manipulation. Problem is it's just the next step, moving a stage beyond the trial and error seed selection
Re: Unlikely. (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to ban GMO. Just clearly label it. No one will buy it, and the frankenfarmers will go out of business.
We should also label all irradiated food, and all those atomic farmers will go out of business! https://www.fda.gov/food/resou... [fda.gov]
Labels on foods without any scientific basis do nothing but scare ignorant people.
Re: Unlikely. (Score:2)
Re: Unlikely. (Score:4, Insightful)
People are opposed to labeling because it is pointless. OK, you want to know how your food is produced. Big deal. Why stop at whether or not it is GMO? I want to know what companies produced the tractors that were used in the production of my food. I demand a label! I want to know what nationalities of the people who handle the food are. Label it! I want to know what wages are paid to the workers in the fields. Label it! I want to know who sold the seeds to the farmer. Label it! I could come up with many more examples of stupid things people might 'want to know', each as pointless as knowing if it is GMO.
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There are only two possible reasons for mandatory labelling of GMO foods. The first is health. GMO foods already are labelled with all the known health problems they cause (ie none). The other reason is nothing more than pure politics.
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I'm perfectly happy with whatever regulations you want on "Organic" foods. Then you can have your first-world-problem food, and everyone else can get on with feeding billions.
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"GMOs are poison" is equivalent to "Vaccinates cause autism" on the sanity scale. Just so you know.
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So use your brain and buy things are marked 'non-GMO' and assume that everything else is GMO. What's the problem?
Dear feds, thanks for the price support..... (Score:2)
You say 'bans', organized crime says 'profit centers'. Same thing, really.
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. . . Feeding more people? [wikipedia.org]
Nations would have starved without dwarf wheat. That's not "GMO", but the idea is the same. We can do better.
Ask yourself if "There is no reason to reinvent computers" makes sense, then come back to the conversation.
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To attract animals to eat the fruits and distribute the seeds. Duh. Yes, brix is a common measure of fruit quality, as consumers usually prefer higher brix fruits. But there's countless wild fruits that are higher brix than apples. Also, as a side note, but brix without corresponding TA often tastes bland or insipid.
Apples are not a particularly water-wasteful fruit to cultivate.
You're off t
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Oooohh, annonas too! Cherimoya, sugar apple, guanabana, biribá.... *swoon*
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It's mostly about transport times. If long-distance endpoint-to-endpoint transport can be made fast and not unduly expensive, I imagine you'll see fruit more often picked in a riper state and shipped in anti-crush containers. Rather than dumped into big boxes, hard and green, so that they can handle them like rocks.
Failure (Score:2)
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What about a sleevewarmerdog [wikipedia.org]?
FruitS? (Score:2)
Sorry, what?
Don't care if it is labelled (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care how badly they mutilate the fruits and veggies JUST SO LONG AS THEY ARE LABELLED AS GMO. Let the market sort it out. What are the corporations hiding that they would fight tooth and nail against labels? Don't people have a simple right to know what they are buying and eating?
Re:Don't care if it is labelled (Score:5, Insightful)
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For the reason of having choice, that's all you have to worry about. We're asking for information so we can choose, we're not inviting you to try to choose for us, or to tell us you disagree with our choices. We might also disagree with your choices.
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choice for what? if you label all the stuff that is GMO just about everything will have a label on it.
Just about, but not everything. It would cost literally $0 more, because everything is already labeled. The produce PLU codes could reflect the GMO status, so you wouldn't have to add the letters "GMO" anywhere and you could still get the point across. Packaged foods already have high packaging costs and lots of room, so it's not any kind of problem there either.
your choice will be starve or eat GMO.
No, that's patently false. The truth is that if they labeled all the GMO things as GMO, less people would buy those things, and less GMO crops woul
Re: Don't care if it is labelled (Score:4, Informative)
For the reason of having choice, that's all you have to worry about.
That's idiotic. Your "I want choice" can be used as an argument for absolutely anything.
"I want to know all of the produce which was picked by left handed redheads"
"Why?"
"Because I want choice, that's all you have to worry about."
Yeah, OK. I'll get around to that just as soon as I finish labeling all the stuff that was touched by black people. The KKK wants choice too.
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God DAMNIT, I'm trying to eat healthy. This sorta shit isn't helping.
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For the reason of having choice, that's all you have to worry about. We're asking for information so we can choose, we're not inviting you to try to choose for us, or to tell us you disagree with our choices. We might also disagree with your choices.
Why stop there? Why not label all sorts of other random arbitrary things?
Would you like the book shrink wrapped to the product packaging?
Or would you like a scan thingie so you can download the book (that might be the best solution)?
Re: Don't care if it is labelled (Score:2)
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GM is substantively different from breeding because it permits changes not possible in any other way. Where the changes would be possible with selective breeding, you're right. But that is not the only kind of GM.
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There's a legitimate concern about the scope of what could have changed.
Natural selection has made some fascinating things (I'm looking at you baby, *cheesy smiley and finger-guns*), and unnatural selection like cultivation and domestication have made for more useful foods (and kinda freaky dogs). But the scope of what's possible with this method is known and constrained. Most variety happens with crossover, there's only so much mutation and what you get is typically small. If it's too large, the offspring
Re: Don't care if it is labelled (Score:3)
I used to be opposed to idiotic labels like those, until I realised that they'll have the exact opposite effect of what the fearmongers want. "GMO" labels will eventually turn out the same as California's "everything causes cancer" labels. It's going to reach such heights of absurdity that people will completely ignore them.
I think the "organic" shills realise this to some extent which is why they've intentionally avoided labeling things like cheese and insulin. My bet is they're trying to walk a thin lin
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What are the corporations hiding that they would fight tooth and nail against labels?
Why does it have to be nefarious? They fight anything that would hurt sales.
Ignorant people don't want to buy GMO food, so labeling would hurt sales (even though it shouldn't).
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What are the corporations hiding that they would fight tooth and nail against labels?
Evidence that consumers are incredibly stupid and jump onto tinfoil hattery like GMO = bad. There's a shitton of products at a supermarket that could use some very big warning labels. GMO fruit isn't one of them.
Re: Don't care if it is labelled (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Don't care if it is labelled (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what makes the labeling arbitrary. Labeling mutation breeding or hybridization is never brought up, which is arguably less predictable and safe, presumably because people would realize that everything they eat, including their favorite brands, has been substantially mutated from their "natural" state.
Unjustifiably labeling GMO can sway uninformed people into incorrect assumptions, such as equating it to dangerous products and ingredients that are also labeled in many countries, like tobacco, alcohol and allergens.
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The public has a right to know what they're eating.
Son, the public hasn't had a frigging clue what they have been eating since the 50s.
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Why not have a designated religious process area on food labels? That's where we would indicate halal, kosher, No GMO, etc. Nutrition labels list ingredients, and GMO is not an ingredient.
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Also, where should the labels stop? "Cultivated in a field fertilized with slaughterhouse waste"? "Handled by a snotty teenager with a cold"?
Not that I'd complain having a full traceable history logged to ids in the packaging or crates (NFC / RFID / QR / etc, depending on the exact implementation details) ;) Bunch of log records like "X cultivar was planted at Y location on Z day... products A and B were applied on day C.... " etc, where everything is hyperlinked to learn more about it.
Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the most appropriate objection to GMOs is that Monsanto (now Bayer) uses them to lock farmers into hyper-exploitative contracts and uses heavy-handed legal tactics to enforce them, leading to collateral damage (farmers being wrongly sued for using unlicensed seeds) and suicide by farmers crumpling under the pressures exerted by Monsanto/Bayer.
On the GMO topic per se, I'm with the large number of scientists who can't see anything wrong with it. Gene splicing and editing are just new and different ways of doing what we've always done with crops. With technological developments like these, I think we're due for a review of our agricultural policies and laws but in the public interest, i.e. no corporate and lobby money allowed. But I guess that's just a pipe-dream.
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You need to be more skeptical of your source (organicconsumers.org) as the author has a clear bias to promote woo, being a osteopath, which is the non-science based art of bone-cracking and mixing in homeopathy instead of medicine. Why this self-proclaimed doctor is talking about agriculture and ecology is anyone's guess.
Before glyphosate-resistant crops farmers still generally bought seeds each season. Since about a century back, crops meant for commercial consumption have come from hybrid seeds. Hybrid
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My intention by bringing up apples was that Granny Smith is a household-name hybrid that can't be grown from its own seeds. Whether it was re-hybridized from the same parents or continuously grafted into new trees is beside the point, though I can see how it adds unnecessary complexity to my point.
The majority of corn are hybrids that come from inbred parents, according to this seed grower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (2:30 min video -- How Are Corn Hybrids Created). This will of course vary between c
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Define "wongly" and, more pointedly, name one. Include the court and case number if you have it.
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Thanks AC :) Looks like we've got a few Monsanto/Bayer astro-turfers among us.
@DRJlaw, "court and case number"? Seriously? And why not transcripts and the judge's middle name(s) and favourite colour, while you're asking?
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Relevant xkcd (Score:3)
Fruits OK, but vegetables are where the money's at (Score:2)
I love Pluots as much as the next person, but if you really want to get people (particularly parents) forking over money GMO some strawberry-flavored broccoli.
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Real strawberry taste is the result of hundreds of complex chemicals, spread out over even more genes, as is the taste of broccoli that has to be removed. Though it may eventually be possible to achieve, the taste of strawberries would probably clash with the texture of broccoli.
GMO changes tend to focus on inserting or tweaking a few specific genes, typically to produce more of some protein related to disease resistance, drought tolerance, vitamin production, etc.
My goodness (Score:2)
In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will no longer regulate genetically altered plants, so long as the changes could have been produced through traditional plant-breeding techniques.
How sciency!
Slow vs fast (Score:3)
I think there is a point in breeding crops the slow traditional way over several generations (of crops): You notice the faults with a breed of crop over some time, and you often have a larger number of different seeds to use for the next generation.
Of course you could do gene editing in a responsible, slow way too, but it gene editing is being sold on its speed and instant results.
GMO needs time (Score:2)
I am not against GMO per se but we have to acknowledge that GMO unlike other cross breeding changes that have happened is that GMO changes have one thing against them and that is time. Selective changes that have happened already to the fruit we eat today have had time to test for any adverse effects.
We have to acknowledge the fact that anything we put in our stomach has the possbility to cause harm and the effects can manifest itself after a long time. There is always the possibility that something we eat
Save the banana! (Score:2)
Can they edit in fungus resistance and save the banana?
Improve citrus by removing fumarins? (maybe) (Score:2)
I've read that citrus fruits contain substances called fumarins, that when exposed to UV light can become carcinogenic.
I don't think reliable epidemiological studies have shown that citrus consumption and subsequent human exposure to sunlight increases cancer rates, but if they do, then we can reduce cancer incidence by removing fumarins from citrus. (Can, not necessarily should, they might provide health benefits that are greater than the risk.)
Right now, citrus is being saved from becoming commercially e
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Tomacco (Score:2)
It tastes like GrandMa!
Protect what was instead? (Score:2)
Re: Foodies VS Luddites (Score:3, Interesting)
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If the frankenfoods are clearly labeled as GMO, hardly anyone will buy them. Probably the government will try to force people on public assistance to eat GMO, so their bribe-contributors in the industrial farming business will have *someone* to buy their unwanted garbage.
If you unnecessarily label stuff as if it were scary, that will depress sales. Well, yes.
Temporarily, anyway ... as someone else pointed out, "California says this causes cancer" is now just ignored. As would these labels be, eventually.
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I doubt that GMO "certainly" explains why we're so damned unhealthy as a country. Do you have a reference? What biological mechanism would cause GMO to make you unhealthy? Stop making things up.
Most likely it is due to an inverted food pyramid of high-calorie fatty snacks, sugary soft drinks, and greasy deep-fried foods, along with inactivity. I've rarely seen an unhealthy/obese person on a Mediterranean diet (not just starting the diet but on it for many years). Most of the fresh fruits, nuts, and v
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Wookiefoot made a great song on this "no more junk in my food"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Sample of lyrics:
Then monsanto owned the farms gm gm gmo and on that farm he had a plant that won't produce a seed monopolize everything that grow....
This is an example of what anti-science liberals call a research study.
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Broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, and cabbage are all cultivars of the same species: Brassica oleracea. Turnips, bok choy, and Napa cabbage are all cultivars of Brassica rapa. It's not true that supermarkets don't stock variants of the same fruits or vegetables. The thing is that in some cases the cultivars are so wildly different we don't even recognize them as the same thing.
I've been shopping at supermarkets for over fifty years now. Here's the big change since the 1960s: supermarkets have gotten larg