Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: kirsten on 02/09/2008 17:53:01

Title: Could you inject DNA from one plant into another to make a new fruit?
Post by: kirsten on 02/09/2008 17:53:01

kirsten asked the Naked Scientists:

Is it possible to inject kiwi DNA into a strawberry plants main stem and create a new fruit?

What do you think?

Title: Could you inject DNA from one plant into another to make a new fruit?
Post by: rosalind dna on 02/09/2008 18:15:20

Yes it is called Genetic Modification

Title: Could you inject DNA from one plant into another to make a new fruit?
Post by: blakestyger on 02/09/2008 19:06:56

Quote from: kirsten on 02/09/2008 17:53:01

kirsten asked the Naked Scientists:
Is it possible to inject kiwi DNA into a strawberry plants main stem and create a new fruit?

No, nothing would happen.

The artificial insertion of the selected kiwi fruit gene into a strawberry plant would have to be done by recombinant DNA techniques in a laboratory in order to get it into its genome contained in the cell nucleus. The crop of new plants would then be grown from seed produced by the 'new' plant.
It takes a bit of time to get this right. New fruit generally result from hybridisation of types that are from the same genus at least; I think tayberries are the result of this - and some citruses.