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An international team of scientists has managed to transfer disease resistance from one plant family to another, offering broader protection from potentially costly and destructive pests.
A team led by Cyril Zipfel at Britain's Sainsbury Laboratory found that transferring a single gene from a wild plant to disease-susceptible crop plants made them more robust against infections like bacterial wilt and other diseases.
If the results can be duplicated more widely, they could help prevent massive crop losses and avoid environmental, health and financial costs associated with using pesticides, the researchers wrote in the Nature Biotechnology journal on Sunday.
"The implications for engineering crop plants with enhanced resistance to infectious diseases are very promising," Sophien Kamoun, head of the Sainsbury Laboratory, said in a commentary.
The team is already extending its work to several crop plants, including potato, apple, cassava and banana - all of which suffer from damaging bacterial diseases, particularly in the developing world.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) said last year that bacterial wilt disease had been found in bananas in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Uganda, Africa's leading banana grower and consumer, has suffered with the disease since 2001 and it causes losses of between $70-million and $200-million annually, according to CGIAR.
Zipfel's team, which included Dutch, French and American researchers, explained in the study that breeding programmes for plant disease resistance usually focus on single genes in crop plants that could fight a particular strain of bug.
This resistance usually breaks down in field-grown crops as the pest finds ways to outwit the plant.
The new study focused on an immune receptor gene called a pattern recognition receptor (PRR) which is activated by many bacterial bugs but is not normally found in potato or tomato plant families.
Scientists transferred the gene from a wild species into tomato and other plants, and when they tested the transformed plants against a variety of diseases they found drastically enhanced resistance to many different bugs.
"The strength of this resistance is because it has come from a different plant family, which the pathogen has not had any chance to adapt to. Through genetic modification, we can now transfer this resistance across plant species boundaries in a way traditional breeding cannot," Zipfel wrote. - By Kate Kelland, Independent Online
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An extract from tomato seeds has been found to be a potential alternative to aspirin in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
A tomato derivative called Fruitflow, derived from the gelatine that surrounds tomato seeds, is apparently effective in reducing the risk of blood clotting.
Scientists at Aberdeen's Rowett Institute said the results of the latest trials were "statistically significant".
Provexis, a spin-off company of the research institute, which manufactures Fruitflow, has released its findings after comparing the effects of Fruitflow and aspirin over a seven-month period using 43 people.
"We are delighted with the results of this latest human trial, which highlights the substantial effect that Fruitflow can have, without the associated side effects known to occur with aspirin,” the Scotsman quoted chief executive Stephen Moon as saying.
He added: "We have already announced intent to enter into an agreement with DSM Nutritional Products, the world's leading supplier of vitamins, carotenoids and other fine chemicals to feed, food, pharmaceutical and personal care industries."
No ill effects were observed even when Fruitflow and aspirin were taken together.The drawbacks of aspirin are: it increases risk of ulcers and stomach bleeding. Zeenews
Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston, was against weight-loss surgery for kids, he says, because it ignored the real problem, a "toxic environment" jammed with junk food.
He's since changed his mind.
The rate of obesity in children has tripled since 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, boosting rates of sleep apnea, diabetes and heart disease. That's why Ludwig, a leading childhood-obesity researcher, now says surgery should probably be considered as an option for some adolescents with Type-2 diabetes, who have failed conventional weight-loss programs.
A gastric band made by Allergan this year may become the first cleared by federal regulators to be sold to children as young as 14. For Allergan, the approval may open an avenue to as many as 2 million new customers, according to Dr. Christine Ren-Fielding, a surgeon at New York University's Langone Weight Management Program.
Both Ren-Fielding and Ludwig say use of gastric bands should be allowed for kids, with limits.
"Ultimately, we want to create a public-health approach that makes surgery unnecessary — less junk food, better school lunch, physical education in school and after-school recreation activities," said Ludwig, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, in a telephone interview. "But until we reach that time, surgery may be the necessary fallback for some of the most extreme cases."
Ludwig said he has no financial ties to Allergan.
The bands are already implanted in some children, doctors say, and the latest data suggest adolescents lose 11 times more weight with the devices than with diet and exercise alone.
Price is an issue for many obese teenagers, Ludwig said. "Low-income, minority populations tend to have greater chronic disease burden, and less ability to pay for the needed medical care," he said.
In 2009, 220,000 people in the United States underwent weight-loss surgery, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, a Gainesville, Fla.-based organization of doctors who perform the procedures. That's an increase from 28,800 in 1999, the group reported.
Surgery, though, should only be considered as a last resort for children, according to New York University's Ren-Fielding, who said in a telephone interview that she's implanted gastric-band devices in some adolescents.
Dr. Edward Livingston, a surgeon at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, agreed. It's important to be cautious because there's no data available showing lap-bands are safe and effective longer term in either adults or children, according to Livingston, who said he has performed bariatric surgeries for 17 years in adults.
"The problem with bariatric surgery is that you're treating a psychological disease with a knife," Livingston said. Along with the surgery, "you need warnings to counsel parents and patients about lifestyle changes. And you need to be compliant about lifestyle changes to get any benefit."
Ludwig believes a public-health approach is important. After an ideal intervention, he said, no children would be candidates for bariatric surgery. By Elizabeth Lopatto, Seattle Times
