Question: why is transgenics so important to your work

Sian Foch-Gatrell answered on 12 Jun 2010:

In order to know how something works, we first must know what happens when it is ‘broken’ or mutated. If we can see where a mutation has occurred we can find out where about in the gene it is and what other genes may have been affected.

Genes are very complex and are often interlinked with other processes that may or may not be important. By using transgenic plants we can induce a mutation in a particular area that is not desirable while at the same time maintaining those that are important.

Mutations are very important in helping us to characterize the genome of the species that we are interested in so we can see which genes are involved in what and where they may be in a particular pathway.

We can also use mutations to produce novel genes. Novel genes are usually produced by duplication and mutation of an ancestral gene, or by recombining parts of different genes to form new combinations with new and desirable functions.

What we work on in our lab is a plant species called barley which is an important crop. The seeds of which are used for food. The rest of which has a potential to be used as a biofuel. So, by characterising the genome and inducing mutations that could be beneficial are of paramount importance to solving two of the most important problems currently facing humans. Starvation and running out of an energy source. The benefits we hope to find would be a plant with good seed biomass, good disease resistance, but with reduced lignin content to allow us to more easily access the sugars inside.