What was special about the Flavr Savr tomato?

What was special about the Flavr Savr tomato?

The Flavr Savr was designed to be able to be left longer to ripen on the vine (many natural tomatoes are picked unripe and then ripened through chemical means) and to have a longer shelf life than natural tomatoes.

What is one trait of the Flavr Savr tomato?

The first tomato is perfect: round, bright red and with no signs of softening. The second has wrinkly skin and a dulled color, clearly rotten. The perfect tomato is a Flavr Savr, engineered to maintain the texture, juiciness and color of a freshly picked tomato for longer.

Which technique is used for Flavr Savr variety of tomato?

Answer: Genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology is used in the production of Flavr Savr tomato.

What gene was inserted into the Flavr Savr tomato?

The Flavr Savr tomato was introduced as the first genetically engineered whole food in 1994. The commercial event, resulting from transformation with an antisense expression cassette of the endogenous polygalacturonase gene, was sequenced and found to contain two contiguous, linked, transfer DNA insertions.

What is the improved characteristics of Flavr Savr tomatoes?

The tomato has an improved shelf-life, increased fungal resistance and a slightly increased viscosity compared to its non-modified counterpart. It was meant to be harvested ripe for increased flavor for long-distance shipping.

What modifying technique is used in Flavr Savr?

Flavr Savr Tomato Antisense RNA technology was used to slow down the process of softening and rotting caused by fungal infections, which led to increased shelf life of the GM tomatoes. Additional genetic modification improved the flavor of this tomato.

How does Flavr Savr work?

The FLAVR SAVR™ tomato was developed through the use of antisense RNA to regulate the expression of the enzyme polygalacturonase (PG) in ripening tomato fruit. This enzyme is one of the most abundant proteins in ripe tomato fruit and has long been thought to be responsible for softening in ripe tomatoes.

How is Flavr Savr made?

Which advantage of Flavr Savr over the usual tomatoes gives it a commercial reason to be produced by biotechnology?

So, the correct answer is ‘Has reduced amount of enzyme polygalacturonase’.

What is the antisense technology?

Antisense technology is when a piece of RNA that is complementary in sequence is used to stop expression of a specific gene. Antisense therapy is a form of treatment for genetic disorders or infections.

What was modified in Flavr Savr tomato?

Why Flavr Savr tomato is regarded as superior to native tomato?

Production of polygalacturonase is blocked in the transgenic tomato variety ‘Flavr Savr’. So, fruits of this tomato variety remain fresh and retain their flavour much longer than do the fruits of normal tomato varieties. Additionally, the fruits have a superior taste and increased total soluble solids.

How are Flavr Savr tomatoes genetically modified?

What do antisense oligonucleotides do?

Small pieces of DNA or RNA that can bind to specific molecules of RNA. This blocks the ability of the RNA to make a protein or work in other ways. Antisense oligonucleotides may be used to block the production of proteins needed for cell growth.

What are oligonucleotides used for?

For most uses, oligonucleotides are designed to base-pair with a strand of DNA or RNA. The most common use for oligonucleotides is as primers for PCR (polymerase chain reaction). Primers are designed with at least part of their sequence complementary to the 5′ end of the sequence targeted for amplification.

How is Flavr Savr developed?

Why did the Flavr Savr tomato fail?

“Flavr Savr failed because it made a minimal impact on shelf life/fruit softening, and the transgene was put into some very poor germplasm,” Harry J. Klee, Ph. D., Monsanto’s chief tomato scientist two decades ago, told GEN. “Calgene chose an old-at-the-time variety that they could access with FTO,” added Dr.

Why Flavr Savr tomato failed?

Flavr Savr failed because Calgene management lost sight of the objective; they chose their product based on technical and regulatory expediency, not on developing and marketing a superior product. Too bad they didn’t include tomato breeders and production experts in their decision-making and production processes.

How do antisense oligonucleotides regulate gene expression?

Antisense oligonucleotides (AS ONs) are synthetic DNA oligomers that hybridize to a target RNA in a sequence-specific manner. They have successfully been employed to inhibit gene expression, modulate splicing of a precursor messenger RNA, or inactivate microRNAs.