GM Tobacco Targets TNT

Source from:  tr.itsmyiq.com Aug 14, 2007 08/15/2007

A genetically engineered tobacco plant might have a future in cleaning up soil contaminated with TNT, according to a sciencedaily.com report quoting an article 'Impact of Transgenic Tobacco on Trinitrotoluene (TNT) Contaminated Soil Community, which is scheduled to be published in the August 15 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology. In a new study, researchers inserted a gene for a TNT-transforming bacterial enzyme into a tobacco plant. They then tested the plant's effect on TNT-contaminated soil against that of regular tobacco plants grown in the same soil for several weeks. The genetically modified plants were said to have reduced significantly the toxicity of the TNT-contaminated soil. Enditem