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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1999
> April
> April 30, 1999:
Hour One: Deformed Frogs / New Plant Biotech
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Ever since 1995, when a group of students in
Minnesota noticed that many of the frogs in nearby
ponds were deformed, environmental scientists have
been trying to track down the cause. Could it be
more pollutants in the water? A thinner ozone layer
allowing more mutation-inducing UV light to reach
the tadpoles? What?
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Image courtesy Sessions lab
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Two papers published this week in the journal
Science may have an answer. According to researchers at
Hartwick College in New York and Stanford University in
California, a large number of the deformations resulting in
multiple limbs may be due to microscopic parasites called
trematodes. The trematodes burrow into the skin of young
tadpoles, scrambling up the cells that eventually form legs
in grown frogs. The scrambling, the researchers say,
produces multiple legged-frogs that look exactly like the
deformations found in several species of frogs in the wild -
but other kinds of deformations could be caused by other
factors.
However, the researchers don't know why, or even if, the parasites
have been more of a threat to frogs lately. Some people say that all
of the deformations are a sign of environmental stress, while others
claim that there have always been deformed frogs, but that lately
people have been more likely to notice them. We'll talk about it on
this segment of Science Friday.
Plus..Imagine a world in which plants aren't just "what's for dinner"
- they're biological machines that can manufacture drugs or help clean
up human messes. Sound like science fiction? Research published this
week in the journal Nature Biotechnology says that it may not be too
far off...
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Many researchers have been looking into ways to get plants
to produce specific proteins for human use. But a big problem
has always been getting the proteins out of the plant once they're
produced. Having to harvest the plant and separate out the desired
protein has made large-scale protein production through plants
somewhat difficult. But researchers at Rutgers University in
New Jersey have developed a new twist - tobacco plants that
manufacture proteins, and then excrete them out of the plants'
roots into a hydroponic solution. That makes it a lot easier
to separate the wheat from the chaff - and raises the possibility
of "protein factories" in which plants suspended in hydroponic
tanks drink in protein ingredients and ooze the finished product
out into a constantly-flowing stream.
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seed image courtesy USDA ARS
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Plants are also being used to take chemicals out of the soil. Some teams
are developing plants that filter harmful materials like chromium, lead,
and mercury out of the soil - and one team, at Cambridge University
in the UK, have developed a tobacco plant that can filter the explosive
TNT out of soil and break the organic compound down into harmless components.
Plants as living, breathing solar-powered machines? We'll talk about
it on this segment of Science Friday.
Guests:
Stanley Sessions
Associate Professor of Developmental Biology
Hartwick College
Oneonta, NY
Ilya Raskin
Professor of Plant Biology
Rutgers Biotechnology Center
New Brunswick, NJ
Michael Sussman
Professor of Horticulture and Genetics
Director, University of Wisconsin
Biotechnology Center
Madison, Wisconsin
Links:
Dr. Sessions'
research
NARCAM deformed frog monitoring
project
The school in Minnesota
that started it all
Alfalfa
as bioreactor
Dr. Raskin's
research
Boyce-Thompson Institute at Cornell
SciFri:
Biotech History/Future
SciFri:
Potato Vaccines
Books/Articles Discussed:
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"Morphological Clues from Multilegged Frogs: Are Retinoids
to Blame? S. K. Sessions, R.A. Franssen, and V. L. Horner. Science
Magazine, April 30 1999.
"Production of recombinant proteins in plant root exudates,"
by N.V. Borisjuk, L.G. Borisjuk, S. Logendra, F. Petersen, Y.
Gleba, and I Raskin. Nature Biotechnology, May 1999.
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This segment produced by:
Charles Bergquist
Web producer:
Charles Bergquist
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