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Biotech

CRISPR Might Be the Banana's Only Hope Against a Deadly Fungus (nature.com) 89

Posted by EditorDavid from the yes-we-have-no-bananas dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Nature: The race to engineer the next-generation banana is on. The Colombian government confirmed last month that a banana-killing fungus has invaded the Americas -- the source of much of the world's banana supply. The invasion has given new urgency to efforts to create fruit that can withstand the scourge.

Scientists are using a mix of approaches to save the banana. A team in Australia has inserted a gene from wild bananas into the top commercial variety -- known as the Cavendish -- and are currently testing these modified bananas in field trials. Researchers are also turning to the powerful, precise gene-editing tool CRISPR to boost the Cavendish's resilience against the fungus, known as Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4). Breeding TR4 resistance into the Cavendish using conventional methods isn't possible because the variety is sterile and propagated by cloning. So the only way to save the Cavendish may be to tweak its genome, says Randy Ploetz, a plant pathologist at the University of Florida in Homestead. The variety accounts for 99% of global banana shipments...

[T]he fungus is a tough opponent. It can't be killed with fungicides, and it can linger in soil for up to 30 years. That has helped TR4 slowly spread around the world, probably by hitching rides on contaminated equipment or in soil. The strain began destroying banana crops in the 1990s in Asia before invading Australia and countries in the Middle East and Africa. Now TR4 is in the Americas, and researchers say that the Cavendish could become virtually extinct in the next several decades unless they can modify it to resist the fungus.
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CRISPR Might Be the Banana's Only Hope Against a Deadly Fungus More

CRISPR Might Be the Banana's Only Hope Against a Deadly Fungus

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  • I remember reading a Robert X Cringley column (Score:3)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @12:43AM (#59248618)

    probably a couple of decades ago. He was talking about the proliferation of GMO fruits and vegetables. He wasn't necessarily against them because they were GMO. What he predicted was that by creating a super version of a fruit or vegetable, farmers would grow only the best version. So if a particularly nasty strain of something attacked a fruit or vegetable, it wasn't attacking 100's of slightly different genetic makeups. It was attacking one. If that one version that everyone grew was vulnerable to whatever was attacking, then everyone's crops were vulnerable.

    • Re:I remember reading a Robert X Cringley column (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @01:03AM (#59248646)

      That line of thinking isn’t original to Cringley - it’s been a core argument of people who rail against monoculture farming, as well those who lament the predominance of hybrids in commercial agriculture, for much of the past century.

    • It doesn't really work that way. For annuals, you can easily breed in a particular gene into a line, and then things proceed as normal. So farmers growing Variety X in one area are now growing Variety X + Gene, and farmers growing Variety Y in another area are now growing Variety Y + Gene. If you look at genetically engineered corn, for example, it isn't like there's just one line of it, there's a bunch that all have the same transgene inserted. In the end, genetic engineering is just one small part of

      • Except: many of the GMO products are patented, and sold excusively by a single vendor or licensees of that vendor. So the genetic source is all one lab. If they have particular desirable genetic aspects, that profoundly discourages competition, including natural competitors. It makes them vulnerable to inbreeding by all farmers, because they are _legally prohibited_ by the patent from cross-breeding and selling seeds of alternative genetic sources..

        • they are _legally prohibited_ by the patent from cross-breeding and selling seeds of alternative genetic sources.

          Bad phraseology there. As written, false. "selling the resultant seeds"

        • Patented, yes, but not sold by exclusively one distributor. I think you misunderstand how that works. There are plenty of seed vendors that incorporate the patented technology under some license. Different varieties are adapted to different areas, and no one is going to ignore the importance of that. Example, here's a seed catalog [chemgro.com] listing varieties and traits. Don't like them? Buy from these guys. [dekalbasgr...tapine.com] Or buy from someone else.

          The original transgene is from one lab, yes, but it is crossed into a multitud

          • I believe I said that? "sold exclusively by a single vendor or licensees of that vendor"?

            The crossover is proscribed, and the genes have to be considered contaminants even if they occur accidentally or naturally in other strains. Some of the results of this have been very bad for farmers whose crops were contaminated accidentally by neighbor's fields.

    • Now imagine that monoclone being under corporate copyright, and designed to be infertile.

      Yet life finds a way anyway, and it spreads from your neighbor's field to yours.
      So Monsanto's agents (serioulsy, literally black suits, black sunglasses and those earpieces) come in, discover it, and sue you for copyright infringement.

      Several Texan farmers went to prison for 10 years for that!
      For real! In real life!

      But wait! There's more!

      It is also modified to not die from Roundup herbicide. Which otherwise kills ALL th

      • This new fungus resistant banana would likely be under corporate copyright -- The university is likely in partnership with someone. And it's already sterile. The hard part is already done.

      • Yet life finds a way anyway, and it spreads from your neighbor's field to yours. [...] Several Texan farmers went to prison for 10 years for that! [...] Source: "The World According To Monsanto", arte (a well-known German-French TV station). It's on several video platforms too.

        The only such case that I have read about was Monsanto v. Schmeiser, in which the judge awarded token damages to Monsanto. As for the Texas case, for those who prefer to read text rather than watch video, is a transcript of the relevant portion available to the public?

        • The only such case that I have read about was Monsanto v. Schmeiser, in which the judge awarded token damages to Monsanto

          He didn't even describe that case accurately, since none of Monsanto's plants are designed to be infertile, and Percy's case was intentional (he grew them on purpose) rather than accidental.

      • Now imagine that monoclone being under corporate copyright, and designed to be infertile.

        Patent, and no seeds "designed to be infertile" have been released commercially.

        Yet life finds a way anyway, and it spreads from your neighbor's field to yours.

        So it would be good if they were infertile?

        So Monsanto's agents (serioulsy, literally black suits, black sunglasses and those earpieces) come in, discover it, and sue you for copyright infringement.

        If you knowingly violate the patent rights of someone, for profit, ...

        Several Texan farmers went to prison for 10 years for that!

        Citation needed.

        It is also modified to not die from Roundup herbicide. Which otherwise kills ALL the things.

        Well, it's an herbicide, which means that it kills plants...

        Herbs, any other strain or species of that plant, flocks of ducks, children...

        Oh, you were just fear-mongering. Forget the fact that Roundup is one of the safer herbicides that breaks down quickly in the environment, preventing it from spreading.

        Source: "The World According To Monsanto"

        The one that the French Association for Scientific Information describes as

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Monsanto/Bayer has lost 3 high profile Roundup/cancer lawsuits in the past year and a half.

          • A lawyer in managed to convince some people in California a chemical was bad? I'm so not shocked!

            But seriously, per everyone's favorite wiki: [wikipedia.org]

            With the exception of the French-based international cancer research agency (IARC), affiliated with the WHO and the UN, scientific reviews and regulatory agencies have regularly concluded that glyphosate-based herbicides do not lead to significant risks for human or environmental health when the product label is properly followed.

            The consensus among national pesticide regulatory agencies and scientific organizations is that labeled uses of glyphosate have demonstrated no evidence of human carcinogenicity.

      • Re:Monsanto can top that scenario. (Score:5, Informative)

        by ChromeAeonuim ( 1026946 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @01:22PM (#59249846)

        So Monsanto's agents (serioulsy, literally black suits, black sunglasses and those earpieces) come in, discover it, and sue you for copyright infringement.

        Except that has literally never happened. Not once. In fact, there was actually a lawsuit where an organic group sued Monsanto and the lawsuit was dismissed [npr.org] because they could not come up with a single, not one, case of that happening. Turns out, biased, bullshit documentaries don't count as actual evidence.

        Not that any of this has squat to do with bananas, which are not propagated in this way.

      • Corporate patent shenanigans are not a defect in the biology of genetic engineering. They are the fault of our legal system.

    • Re:I remember reading a Robert X Cringley column (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday September 29, 2019 @04:56AM (#59248918)

      It's worse, the current Candish Banana is a clone, they are all the very same plant all over the world.

      Mono-Culture in the literal sense of the word.

      Also, it's not a very good one, if they want to make a banana resistant, they should do it with the former model 'Gros Michel', which still exists, at least we'd have bananas with some taste.

      • And that's what makes this article just stupid.

        We effectively have a single commercial banana plant. Not species. Plant. They're all clones.

        The answer to fixing the fact that a single plant is vulnerable to disease should not be a mad rush to genetic engineering. How about we try different varieties first? Maybe move away from the most extreme monoculture the world has ever seen first, then see where we're at.

        • Re:I remember reading a Robert X Cringley column (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ChromeAeonuim ( 1026946 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @01:28PM (#59249866)
          This is pretty common among tree fruit. Annual crops are sexually propagated, but longer lived crops are asexually propagated. The problem with using another variety is that, IIRC, there are no known sources of resistance withing the banana genepool for this particular strain of the disease. That is why they are turning to sources outside the genepool and gene editing.
        • I thought the reason why we were using the cavendish is because all of the other palatable banana varieties had already fallen prey to fungus varieties. Isn't the cavendish the only one left? Gros Michel already has its arch nemesis fungus and can only be grown in special environments where care is taken to avoid contamination.

      • My advice, buy a Gros Michel before you start making this claim. The only place in the world that seems to prefer it is Japan.

        I've eaten at least 5 different banana varieties this month. The organic Cavendish tastes as good as any of the others. The varieties are each a little different, but they're not as different as apple varieties. The conventional Cavendish has a little less flavor, as expected of any food plant that is heavily fertilized.

    • >>>>> " What he predicted was that by creating a super version of a fruit or vegetable, farmers would grow only the best version."

      At the macro level, this is a fundamental flaw of Gangsta Crapitalism - if one person cheats [via, say, taking advantage of the glorified slave labor provided by immigration], then everyone else has to cheat: Otherwise [i.e. if no one else cheats] the one cheater quickly rises to monopoly supremacy in the marketplace.

      >>>>> "Breeding TR4 resistanc

      • If that hits too close to home, then slowly wean yourself off the Ritalin/Adderall, get on a Keto/Paleo diet, start lifting, learn Game

        I'm taking steps. Over a decade ago, I switched from prescription Ritalin (methylphenidate) to over-the-counter Diet Mtn Dew (caffeine) to control my mental condition. I've been cutting back on added sugar and adding vegetables, though not quite to the Atkins extent. And I've been progressing on the strength machines at a gym. But as for the last point: What exactly do you mean? Board game? Video game? Ball game? Hunting for wild game with a semiautomatic sporting rifle?

      • Oh look - a convergence between the No GMO wackjobs and the incel wackjobs. Popcorn!

        • incel wackjobs

          The rumors I'm hearing is that yuge numbers of the Millennial boyz are going VolCel on account of the nauseating disgust they feel from the scummy oleaginous psychological sewer of filth in which the Roasties swim.

          Not to mention the ubiquitous Shadow of Darkness which is being cast over their lives by the Battlec*nts...

    • There's nothing wrong with creating one most popular variety of anything, so long as we keep a genetic reserve of earlier varieties that can quickly be used to create a modification of the best-liked strain if it should become vulnerable to something fatal. Such a vuln could be a disease, a parasite, or an environmental need that might suddenly become scarce, id, say, the water supply shrinks.

    • isn't that exactly why bananas are having the issues they are right now?
    • One of the sad issues around GMO, are those fighting against it. Their core issue was use of GMO to make plants resistant to pesticides such as round-up. But, rather than go after plants for pesticides resistance, they chose to go after GMO, even though they have no issues with traditional cross-breeding. While I'm opposed to the resistance ( ultimately, that makes it into weeds ), GMO has made it possible to feed the world. Corn that handles drought, or rice that deals with high saline, and all at a low co

  • They taste awful. Blech.

    • Re:Fuck bananananas (Score:5, Funny)

      by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @01:14AM (#59248664) Journal

      Have you tried peeling them first?

      • I've read that the pinch the distal end to open the peel not the convenient hand left by the junction with the bunch. Which makes sense because you see Chimpanzes with Machettes less often than you see Hobos with a shotgun.

        In any case even chinpanzes peel them. So apparently that is a proven good idea not a habit.

        But as far as TFA goes, Banana's already bottlenecked and died previously. We don't eat the same species our great great great grandma ate.

        So when this one keels over we'll switch to another.

        • But of course we do need to be paying someone to maintain the genetic stock to do that.

          Plenty of people are doing that for free. Go to a village market in Indonesia, Malaysia, or the Philippines. There will be plenty of varieties of bananas for sale. For even greater variety, go to Papua New Guinea. Each mountain valley has their own variety, and there are plenty of wild bananas growing in the jungle, and providing a genetic reservoir.

        • So when this one keels over we'll switch to another.

          You think it's that easy? Otherwise why are we spending millions trying to save the Cavendish?

          OTOH, I wouldn't mind having more varieties, e.g. Blue, Red, and Ice Cream, on the shelf in my super market. I've had Lady Fingers in India. I should check out some of the asian markets in my area to see if they have them there. The wikipedia write up on the Blue says it's pretty sturdy, suggesting it could hold up to the handling they need to survive shipping to US and European markets. I guess too many of us '

          • yeah, probably a lot of sunk costs in cloning and raising a plant to fruitbearing age. But who cares if there's a lag time or bananas go up in price due to scarcity for a while? But sure it makes sense to extend the investment that exists now. Same with Oranges.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          Which would be cool since you are the last generation to know what a ripe orange is. (google Citrus Greening, currently a slow but unstopable disease in florida).

          You do know that there's life (and orange groves) outside Florida, right?

          The sooner the banana dies out the sooner we can stop cutting rainforest and burning fossil fuels so I can serve Daquiris

          The ingredients of a daiquirí are rum, lime juice, sugar, and crushed ice. There's no need to chop down rainforest or grow bananas to make one.

          • The disease has affected crops in China, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, the Ryukyu Islands, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. Areas outside Asia have also reported the disease: Réunion, Mauritius, Brazil, Paraguay, and Florida in the U.S...in several municipalities in Mexico...a single citrus tree in Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles County, California....in San Juan, Texas... Africa, Madeira, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, and Yemen...Burundi, Cameroon, C

        • Your Citrus Greening note lead me to look at wikipedia. C.G. is caused by a gram-negative bacteria and appears to be almost unstoppable wherever citrus grows. One genetic approach showing promise involves inserting a spinach gene. Good orchard practice (destroying infected trees, etc.) helps slow spread. Massive use of antibacterials that humans use also may be effective, but that creates obvious problems. Indole-3-acetic acid or indole-3-butyric acid may also be useful.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Noooo, fuck the cavendish bring back the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. fuck the cavendish I want the banana split of my youth and the cavendish tastes like crap in a banana split. Spend all the money to modify a banana modify the far better tasting banana not the third rate cavendish, even ladies fingers are better, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

      • Have you tried peeling them first?

        Well, presumably if he's been fucking them...

    • The tasty ones, Gros Michel, mostly died out in the last fungus epidemic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xlsior ( 524145 )

        The tasty ones, Gros Michel, mostly died out in the last fungus epidemic.

        Depends on your point of view -- Gros Michel is the breed that artificial banana flavoring emulates, and that stuff tastes nasty. I'd say "good riddance".

        • It has as much to do with Gros Michel flavor as fungus-based strawberry flavor has with fresh strawberries.
          I know because I ate Gros Michel.

          Also, people like what they grew up with. If you knew nothing but Gros Michel all your life, you'd find Cavendish bland and shitty. Like eating a green banana. Eww.

          I suggest you try the real thing, when you're in the Caribbean, East Asia, etc, and then judge the real thing.

      • The tasty ones, Gros Michel, mostly died out in the last fungus epidemic.

        This conveniently gives me a opening for the question which immediately sprang to mind upon reading this submission...

        If they intend to introduce resistance to fusarium though genetic engineering anyway - why not add the gene to Gros Michel (which does still exist, I believe) rather than Cavendish? By all accounts it’s a better banana.

        • Asia still has Gros Michaels.
        • I would guess market acceptance. If people hear that there is a biotech banana on the market and bananas start to taste different, the Facebook rumor machine will go wild. Well, more wild than usual. Besides, one of the things people like about bananas is the consistency. Go changing what they expect and you'll probably get some complaints. Just how people are.

          Gros Michel does still exist. I've had them, you can buy plants online if you're so inclined. I personally don't think they're better or wors
      • I really wouldn't say Gros Michel is better or worse than Cavendish, just different. I'm a fan of Pisang Awak myself, which I've found to have reasonable shelf life so I'm not sure why it isn't cultivated more.

        • I'm a fan of Pisang Awak myself, which I've found to have reasonable shelf life so I'm not sure why it isn't cultivated more.

          I eat it a lot, too. It has much lower yield. That's why in Thailand they prefer to grow Gros Michel for export; it has a high yield, almost as high as Cavendish.

      • Gros Michel is still the main staple in many countries!

        It didn't die out at all!

        Despite the banana industry trying its hardest, to get it to, with their huge monocultures, killing off all genetic diversity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Misagon ( 1135 )

        ... And Cavendish had been chosen to replace it because its taste reminded of Gros Michel.

        There are many other banana varieties, but they don't taste like Gros Michel and Cavendish, which had defined "banana flavour" to consumers.

    • Glad I'm not alone in this one. Do you also find the smell of fresh pumpkin terrible?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They taste awful. Blech.

      Er, are you fucking them or eating them? Fucking them sounds kinda messy, and I'm not surprised they taste awful afterwards.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Bananas should be soft and sweet, not all... CRSPy.

      Deep fried bananas are seriously yummy.

      • And _incredibly_ calorie rich. The high potassium makes them useful good for snacking and exercise, though I've found it far too easy to eat a large bag of them rather than the mere handful I need.

  • Gene editing here is being used, not because it is the only approach, but because they think consumers will not accept traditional transgenics, and might prefer gene edited ones instead. I think this depends. The opposition to genetically engineered crops has never been about science or reason, so I doubt the anti-biotech crowd will suddenly be okay with gene edited crops. The big question is how much of a stink the anti-biotech people will be able to raise over things this time around, and if the rest o

    • What? You have that backwards. They are using it because the traditional technique isn't fast enough, despite the fact that less consumers will accept a GMO product. If they had another viable technique they would use it for this reason. They don't.

  • You know, as has been done for millenia? There are many species of bananas out there so I don't see why they need to get out the gene editing kit just yet other than they want a quick fix regardless of the consequences.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Cavendish is special because it is seedless, doesn't taste too bad, and ships well. To do breeding, you need to grow plants from seed. They'd have to throw away Cavendish and start with something else. And then we'd have bananas with seeds in 'em.

      With CRISPR, they can do all that breeding to make a fungus resistant variety, then hopefully move the genes that create the resistance over to Cavendish so we don't have to pick seeds out of our bananas. Or better yet, maybe they could move it over to Gros Michel

  • There are countries, where Gros Michel is still the main banana. (I know because I ate it.) Which is exactly because they didn't have monocultures. So nothing could just wipe out the whole thing.

    Yet the banana industry constantly acts, like their monoclonal abomination is the last remainder and hope of all bananas in the universe.
    And bitches about it being so endangered.

    Well stop using clones then!
    Imagine the opportunities of selling a *different* kind of banana!
    Or go bankrupt. Your choice.

    • Bananas switching to an apple style variety and breeding race would certainly be interesting.

    • Imagine the opportunities of selling a *different* kind of banana!

      That was already tried, and then we settled on big yellow bananas that can be picked green and self-ripen, because they're easy to transport and because people wanted the big bananas. I've seen other kinds of banana in stores on occasion, so it's not like it's impossible to sell them now, but not enough people are buying to bother.

    • Most of the bananas in Japan are Gros Michel grown on monoculture farms in Thailand.

      You're just repeating what you heard, from somebody else that repeated it.

  • from the homer-simpson dept (Score:3)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @07:42AM (#59249086)
    Soon CRISPR will be the cause of and solution to all of our problems

  • Without having bananas acting as a sink, all that radioactive potassium would be released into the environment. It would be like a thousand Chernobyls, or Three Mile Islands, or Library of Congresses of radioactivity.

  • Cloning got them into this mess. Also this fungus first appeared in Asia - seems to be a common theme for something from Asia to be wiping out an entire plant species of something in the Americas...

  • If someone is going to use Crispr for disease proofing banana's, then they may as well bring back the Gros Michel / Big Mike Banana.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    END COMMUNICATION

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thsths ( 31372 )

      Exactly. It died out because of a fungal disease, and it was supposed to be richer in taste. So if you want to modify a banana, start with the Gros Michel.

    • I like this idea (I like bananas) but it is reasonable to start with the current commercial crop. Assuming success I hope they move on to the Gros Michel. Competitive production might bring them back in to the market. After all there is niche production of other banana varieties, like the Manzano and Ice Cream.

  • From TFA:

    Even if Dale’s transgenic banana wins approval, selling them could be a problem. GM crops have long faced public pushback around the world, especially in Europe.

    There might be some rethinking of this knee-jerk opposition to all thing GMO if they can't get any bananas, but they are readily available in other countries.

    BTW, the summary and TFA state that 99% of all banana shipments in the world are Cavendish. This is making the distinction between the sweet desert type banana and the plantain, for which global production is 25% of banana production.

  • Why save the Cavendish? Bring back the Gros Michel banana. It was a better banana, but it too was wiped out, and was replaced with the Cavendish.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    --PeterM

  • I wonder what would happen if a version of "Fusarium wilt tropical race 4" evolved that only affected arian/anglo-saxon males?

    For a lesson on diversity vs. mono-culture, watch "The Biggest Little Farm" [imdb.com].

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