{"id":14188,"date":"2023-08-20T08:07:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T02:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=14188"},"modified":"2025-04-02T11:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T05:31:58","slug":"gene-edited-mustard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/gene-edited-mustard\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene-edited Mustard"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About<\/strong> <strong>Gene-edited Mustard:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s most significant domestically-grown oilseed is <strong>rapeseed-mustard.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Issues with Mustard seeds<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Mustard seeds have high <strong>levels of glucosinolates,<\/strong> a <strong>group of sulphur and nitrogen-containing compounds<\/strong> contributing to the characteristic pungency of their oil and meal.<\/li>\n<li>Rapeseed meal is <strong>unpalatable to poultry and pigs<\/strong>, while having to be mixed with fodder grass and water for giving to cattle and buffaloes.<\/li>\n<li>Besides reducing their feed intake, high glucosinolates are also known to cause <strong>goiter (swelling of neck) and internal organ abnormalities in livestock.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The dry seeds from the normal mustard (Brassica juncea) cultivated in India <strong>contain 120-130 parts per million<\/strong> (ppm or mg\/kg) of glucosinolates. This is as against the sub-30 ppm levels in canola seeds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>A Gene Editing breakthrough<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Glucosinolates<\/strong> are synthesised in the <strong>leaves and pod walls of mustard plants<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Their translocation and accumulation in the seeds happens through the action of <strong>glucosinolate transporter or GTR genes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>There are 12 such genes under two distinct classes of GTR1 and GTR2 with six copies each.<\/li>\n<li>Researchers <strong>edited 10 out of the 12 GTR genes in \u2018Varuna\u2019<\/strong>, a high-yielding Indian mustard variety.<\/li>\n<li>For this, <strong>they used CRISPR\/Cas9 \u2013 a gene-editing tool deploying an enzyme<\/strong>, which acts as a \u201cmolecular scissors\u201d to cut the DNA at precise targeted locations of the gene, and then letting the natural DNA repair process to take over.<\/li>\n<li>By doing this, <strong>their encoded proteins<\/strong>, responsible for transport of the glucosinolates to the seeds, were rendered non-functional.<\/li>\n<li>By lowering the glucosinolate content to the same dry seed weight concentration, the scientists have bred mustard lines whose oil and meal <strong>match the standard of canola-quality rapeseed (Brassica napus) in terms of pungency.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The new GTR genes-edited mustard lines are <strong>transgene-free or non-genetically modified (GM).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They contain no foreign genes like those of the Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria in cotton or Bar-Barnase-Barstar (isolated from other soil bacteria) in the GM hybrid mustard (DMH-11).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are Proteins?<\/h3>\n<p>Proteins are complex organic molecules composed of amino acids, which are the building blocks of life. They are essential components of all living organisms and play a wide variety of crucial roles in biological processes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-economics\/gene-edited-mustard-less-pungent-more-useful-8901549\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Gene-edited mustard: Less pungent, more useful<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gene-edited Mustard is low-pungent , pest and disease-resistant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}