Scientific Literature and GMOs

What is the difference between primary and secondary literature

Primary lit. is original research/a new scientific discovery

• Immediate results of research activities

• Often includes analysis of data collected in the field or lab

Secondary lit. summarizes and synthesizes primary lit.

• Usually broader and less current than primary lit

Give examples of primary and secondary literature

Primary

• Original research published as articles in peer-reviewed journals

• Dissertations

• Technical reports

• Conference proceedings

Secondary

• Literature review articles

• Books

What are the types of peer reviews

Open Review: Identity known

Single-Blind: Reviewer ID kept private

Double-Blind: Reviewer and Author ID are kept private

What are open access journals

Journals that are freely available on the internet, accessible to anyone

What are traditional journals

Journals that are only visible to those that have a license for viewing a specific journal

What criteria do reviewers evaluate when reviewing an article

• Validity of the science, quality of experimental design, and appropriateness of methods

• Significance of research, importance of findings, field advancements, originality

• Scientific errors and missing/incorrect references

• Typographical or grammatical errors

What are the parts of a scientific paper

• Title: Describe concisely the core contents of the paper

• Abstract: Summarize the major elements of the paper

• Introduction: provide context and rationale for study

• Methods: Describe the experimental procedures

• Results: Summarize the findings without interpretation

• Discussion: interpret the findings of the study

What are impact factors

the yearly average number of citations that recent articles published in a given journal received

• Journals w/ higher impact factors often deemed to be more important than those w/ lower one

• Not comparable across different fields

• Scientific worth of an article has nothing to do with the impact factors often deemed of a journal

What is Eigenfactor

A measure of journal influence based on quality of citations received

• Strong correlation between Eigenfactor scores and the total citations

What are genetically modified/engineered organisms (GMO/GE) and what are some examples

Organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been artificially altered

• BT Corn

• Golden rice

• Roundup ready soybeans

• Virus resistant plants

• Chickens w/ a gene that prevents avian flu

• Genetically modified “self-limiting” male mosquitoes

What are the advantages of GMOs

• Longer shelf life

• Increase in nutrient value

• Elimination of manual weeding

• Reduced use of pesticides

• Vaccine delivery

• Faster developmen

• Microbial resistance

What are the disadvantages of GMOs

• Unintentional horizontal gene transfer

• An organism’s role in the environment can be changed

• Affects viability of offspring

• Allergic reactions to novel proteins

• Reduced diversity

What are organic organisms

Organisms that have never been genetically modified and have never eaten GMOs

What are the different mechanisms for making GMOs

Agrobacterium tumfaciens

• A bacterium that inserts some of its DNA to a host plant’s genome

Gene gun

• Shoots gold particles coated w/ engineered DNA into plant cell

Electroporation

• Electric current is utilized to create pores in cell membrane and allow entry of engineered DNA

How is a foreign gene engineered so that the crop plant’s cells will read it correctly

• Identify gene for protein of interest

• Isolate gene

• Engineer gene so that recipient cell will read it correctly (continually transcribe it): add promoter and terminator

• Introduce into recipient cells

What promoter and terminator is found in most GM plants?

Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) 35S promoter (constitutively active)

• 203 bp PCR product

Agrobacterium tumefaciens nopaline synthase terminator (NOS)

• 225 bp PCR product

How can we test for the presence of GMOs in plants?

Run a PCR in the sample using GMO primers that contain the forward and reverse sequences for CaMV-Promoter and NOS terminator

• If plant is a GMO that contain these sequences, they will be amplified (203 bp PCR product for CamV/225 bp PCR product for NOS)

• If either product is present after Gel Electrophoresis = good sign you have a product that has been GM’ed