Re: Radiation and VFTs/gene splicing
Adam Wexler (fuller@u.washington.edu)
Wed, 16 Nov 1994 14:03:38 -0800 (PST)
Unfortunately the genes which control the development of features
commonly associated with CP's have not been mapped. In other words no one
really knows how many, what type, and where these "trap" genes
reside in the genome. Finding out requires growing out hundreds of
thousands of plants and screening for mutants, then propagating these
mutants, and trying to find out what the genetic basis for the mutation
is. Once one has mapped the genome, no small project - gene mapping in
Arabidopsis (Cruciferae) - has been going on for the past decade and
still very little is known about the developmental genes of this plant.
By the way Arabidopsis also has the smallest genome of the terrestrial
angiosperms. Once one had found the genes which controlled trap
development, "splicing" them would again not be an easy task, you can
only splice in a few genes at a time. And the
legality and ethics associated with doing so we be more difficult than
the actual molecular work. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see
a man eating (or goat eating) Pinguicula or a VFT Apple tree that could
nab those crop thieving crows, but unfortunately too little work has been
done on CP genome structure. Good thesis projects.
A. Wexler