Genetic Pollution is permanent and damaging to the biosphere

Emergence of a new kind of pollutant – runaway genes. 
Dr Abe V Rotor

Genetic engineering is creating unwanted genes and gene materials that carry certain traits that can “pollute” the natural genetic pool.  One example is Bt Corn, a Genetically Modified corn that contains an insect repelling protein snipped from the DNA of Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium known to cause epidemic among caterpillars, including the silkworm. 

Genetically modified plants, in acrylic AVR

     In the open field the pollen of Bt corn is freely liberated and is disseminated by wind and insects, among other means.  Even at far distances the pollen of this GMO  can effectively pollinate cornfields, thus transmitting the Bt component which is expressed in the following offspring or F1.

    

     This new development opens a controversy that touches morals and ethics. It opens a floodgate for researchers to create new types, varieties, hybrids, and even new organisms, which all the more becomes a serious ethico-moral matter.

     Cross-species breeding

     Attempts to breed two different organisms were like the alchemist, transforming an element into another.  While the latter had made strides, which lead, to the making of alloys, the breeder has had little success. The most celebrated case is the mule, which is the offspring of an ass and a mare, or a horse and a she-ass.  But the mule is incapable of self-perpetuation, and must therefore depend the inter-crossing of its two different parents.

     Similar limited success is shown in zebronkey, a cross of the zebra a donkey, and peapple (pear and apple). Unlike the mule, the zebronkey is a freak, which means that  it was bred entirely by chance. So with the peapple.  But the difference is that the latter can be propagated vegetatively, by grafting and budding, and similarly by cutting and marcotting.

     These cases illustrate how nature protects organisms from the inclusion of genes outside their own, which is the key to keeping the integrity of the species.  In short, this is nature’s genetic housekeeping.  As a general rule, genes just cannot be littered around, and even if organisms pick them up, these genes do not pollute the genetic pool of the species. Even the dog which is openly bred into many kinds, will remain a dog. So with the mango, and the rest of the living world.

       The Case of the Living Christmas Tree

     In an agro-industrial fair I attended when I was a young student, I was amazed to see a “living Christmas Tree.” On closer examination the tree is a full grown eggplant, breast high, with branches each of a kind – tomato, pepper, potato, and tobacco.  Surprisingly all these branches were fruiting except the tobacco and potato. It caused a lot of curiosity especially on my part who grew up on the farm and had not seen one occurring in nature.

     “It is an old technique,” the horticulture professor who made the living potpourri explained, “Grafting. You can graft plants that are genetically compatible.  All these plants joined together belong to one family – Solanaceace.”

     This is the final result of the attempt to join the members of a family altogether, without genetically altering them. So the tomato branch produces tomato which tastes exactly like one.  Same is true with the eggplant branches, and so with the rest.

     Again, Nature has its own safety mechanism among plants – including the simpler forms like algae , so that the genes are not altered in the open and in the wild through vegetative transmission. Thus in the field, different plants that naturally live together do not “genetically pollute” vegetatively.

     In vegetative means of reproduction, the compatibility is within the variety or species as a rule. Among species it is only possible to a limited extent, those belonging to the same family. Budding among the members of the citrus family (Rutaceae) is a common horticultural practice. So with members of the cucurbit family (Cucurbitaceae).  One application of this practice of inter species grafting is between the kondol (as stock because of its sturdiness) and watermelon as scion. This graft extends the longevity of the watermelon so that it can produce more fruits, and fruit during off-season.

                  Genetic Engineering Versus Tissue-Organ Transplantation 

      The difference of genetic engineering with tissue-organ transplantation is that GE introduces a gene, or genes, or a snip or a ribbon of DNA, into a recipient. While in the latter, there is no change involved in the process.  Analogously, the tissue or organ is the scion while the recipient is the stock, if we were to compare the process with the grafting of mango. The two parts – the transplant and the recipient, the stock and scion – will never mix genetically, that is, each part will carry their respective sets of genes.  Compatibility is between and among their cells, and not in their genes or DNA – unlike in genetic engineering. 

What is compatible in tissue-organ transplantation is in the way their cells assume physiologic activities like growth and development, metabolism, response to stimuli, and to a certain extent, reproduction. The  transplanted tissue or organ is now part of the recipient organism, which with the new part, can function more efficiently, and perhaps save it from apparent destruction or death.  

 Controversal golden rice

     Genetic pollution then is at present in its incipient stage, unlike the conventional types, like domestic and industrial pollutants. GP is expected to grow by leaps and bounds as progress continues.

      These are vital considerations to ponder:

1.     Genetic engineering – the combination of genes to create desired traits – virtually has no end.  Possibilities are everywhere because of man’s craving for new things that living organisms can give – from antibiotics, to increased production of food.

2.     The virtually endless possibilities in Genetic Engineering does not only create new characters, but new organisms, or shall we say, new life forms, and there is great possibility that the end products may not fit into the natural classification of living things.  

3.     The other side of Genetic Engineering is one viewed from the hands of terrorists and irresponsible persons.  Historically, biological warfare aims at creating virulent forms of pathogens directed to man, his livestock and crops. The benefits of this new science can be overshadowed by the dangers it poses.

4.     Gene pollution could expand to a proportion that does not only affect particular species of organism and their population. It is going to destroy the balance of ecosystems by disturbing the food web, and energy flow.

5.     Once ecosystems such as a lake or a forest is disturbed, they become more and more dependent on human management and are going to be expensive to simulate homeostasis – dynamic balance which only nature can provide.

6.     Genetic pollution is going to be deleterious to health of the individual and the human population.  If this is so then we disturb the workings of our institutions and the society as a whole, and subsequently the decline and fall of civilization.  

Will human evolution take another course?  Will humans ultimately take the path of “auto-evolution”?  Which means we are taking into our hands Creation which only God can do.  If so, then we are playing the role of God.~