bioluminescent gene manipulation

Well I had wrote a thread months ago on gene manipulation and learned some very interesting information from that. I have thought of the idea of a glow in the dark banana and or elephant ear. I looked into it more recently and found a guy who said he would be willing to do the work. This would be if I provided funding for a year of lab research and that I get the proper patients and certificates which make it legal to make and sell such a plant.
After talking to another friend who works in the same field he said in most cases the plants do not show well unless they have white sections in the flower of leaves. He also said it would take him 1 to 2 year to produce such a plant and thousand on thousands of dollars. What maybe produced is a glow in the dark plant but how well would it glow and would it be worth while? Well for now I doubt it. I did find it interesting that the option is available if your willing to spend the money. I had already picked out candidates for test subjects Musa Ae Ae or the lime form of Siam Ruby as well as Colocasia Elena these would most likely be the best subjects to use in a experiment like this.

Another idea which I had thought of but am sure it would not be allowed to be produced would be to take a mild form of mosaic virus and add this gene to it. The idea their would be that you could spread the glowing gene easily into other plants. I am not sure if it would work and I doubt anyone would be willing to sign off on such a idea but it did run through my brain which I may pay dearly for even speaking it out loud spreading viruses and such.

On another note I recently picked up a Guinness book of world records and was amazed to see pictures of glowing rabbits pigs and mice listed in it. Apparently for each new animal genetically modified with the florescent or bioluminescent gene you get to be in Guinness book of world records they have a whole new section for this topic in the book. I am sure will be hearing a lot more of this in the very near future.

This message was edited Dec 15, 2007 3:06 AM

Well, I saw the pictures of the kittens yesterday....kinda creepy though....glow in the dark cats just reeks D horror film. Um...I do have to give you a hard time about the bioluminescent gene fused with mosaic virus idea....pure evil, there.

I'm not sure what virus it is (I imagine it's a mosaic virus of some sort though given the effect it has), but there are people who sell virus infected plumerias, it gives the flowers a different color pattern that some people find attractive. Personally I don't like the idea of using viruses that way, but you wouldn't be the first person to do it!

Bwilliams-Do you know how many different species of plants are infected and killed by mosaic viruses?
Do you know how easy it spreads and mutates to different species?
Did you know if a plant has mosaic, if the virus does not kill the plant, it will transfer to the seeds? Thus keeping the mosaic cycle going.
If you did this, commercially produced lettuce, celery, melons, turnips, alfalfa, tomatoes, cucumbers, and I could go on, would be glowing after several years as they are all effected by some type of mosaic virus. Do you want to eat glowing food?

Ecrane about the plumerias. Most people, not all, who buy the "splash plumeria" (mosaic virus) do not know that the plant has a virus that can be spread and is potentially dangerous to their other Plumeria. As most people who sell splash plumeria, do not let the customer know that it is a virus plant. Sad but true.
Davie

I knew that about the plumies, that's why I don't like it because the sellers aren't even honest about what they're selling. I'm sure if people knew it was a virus they'd be less likely to buy them.

I do not plan to do such a think but I had thought of it just because the cost of producing one plant with bioluminescent was so expensive I was trying to think of another way of making it easier to get it into other plants. So this came to mind though I don't think it's a good idea but it was a idea. I did not intend to get the emotional juices flowing over viruses in plants. I know they are a huge problem in many plant groups and I would not personally infect other plants to get virus streaking Id rather have clean plants. So don't worry about me infecting all the worlds plants with glow in the dark viruses it's not going to happen LOL.

On another note research was done on cannas and it was found that all canna being grown usually have a average of 4 to 7 different viruses. It is likely that cannas have had viruses sense they have been in cultivation it was not till recently that a stronger mosaic virus brought more attention to the problem. The other viruses showed no visual signs of infection but this new virus did. Combined with the other viruses it can make the plant weak show signs of infection and other complications.

Brian,

I'm astonished though that your research found companies willing to do the manipulation. I would thing that the larger botanical companies would be all over this, even if the cost were up in the mid to upper five digits. Many species of sea life have proteins that cause a true blue coloration. We talked about true blue flowers in the previous discussion.

Davey we were talking about this earlier on another thread. You bring up good points which were discussed there, http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/776623/ .

Brian, any new pics of your wall??? :)

-Joe