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PRIONS AND EPIGENETICS. "Prions as epigenetic regulators in yeast. Prions in yeast are often benign and can even confer selective advantages." https://lnkd.in/e38XmS8 View in LinkedIn

NO ANTIBIOTIC MARKER GENES PLEASE. "There is a lack of data on the real rates of HGT between transgenic plants and microbes, and hence prestigious groups around the world, such as WHO, FAO, and the NAS, are urging researchers to produce transgenic plants without antibiotic resistance markers." A wise precautionary principle given what we know about horizontal gene transfer (HGT). http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

VALIDATION OF PRION VEHICLES. "Altogether, the data presented in this study provide support for and highlight exosomes as extracellular vesicles which facilitate intercellular prion transmission." http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2016/01/14/jbc.M115.684258.short View in LinkedIn

HGT IN GMOs? "How serious is the threat of HGT from transgenic plants to bacteria? Transgenic plant-to-microbe HGT has been shown to occur under experimental conditions when the bacteria already contained a form of the plant transgene, but gene transfer from transgenic plants to bacteria has never been shown occurring in the field." Quaint at best. http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

IDEAL PRION VEHICLE. "Given the reported presence of exosomes in biological fluids as well as the lipid and nucleic acid contents of exosomes, these vesicles represent an ideal mechanism for encapsulating prions and potential cofactors to facilitate prion transmission." http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2016/01/14/jbc.M115.684258.short View in LinkedIn

ANTIBIOTIC CONSTRUCT IN GMOs. "Researchers have expended much energy and resources into developing alternative transgenic plant production schemes such as herbicide tolerance, positive selection, and marker-free selection. All these alternatives have prominent drawbacks. After all, approximately 70% of all transgenic plants have been produced using the neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII) gene from Escherichia coli for good reason: it works, especially in most dicot species." http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

INSERTS OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE GENES as markers in GMO constructs. What was convenient in the lab has turned into a potential disaster in the field. A clear case of not thinking it through carefully enough both from a science and a regulatory perspective. View in LinkedIn

GENE INSERTS. "A major problem with many types of vectors, and hence also GMOs, is that they contain genes that confer resistance to antibiotics, herbicides, insecticides and other cytotoxic products, and these can be spread in the environment and create ecological problems." https://lnkd.in/eJ8cwgX View in LinkedIn

ANTIBIOTIC GENE JUMPING. "The movement of a transgene from plant to microbe could pose a significant risk, especially if an antibiotic resistance gene, originally from a bacterium, could be transferred to a pathogenic bacterium, causing new antibiotic resistance problems for human health." http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

RICH MELTING POT. "Gene transfer is common in the gut. A broad assessment of lateral gene transfer events between bacteria from a multitude of environments showed that human-associated bacteria are 25 times more likely to exchange genetic material than bacteria from other environments, and that closely related human-associated bacteria exhibit horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in 20% to 40% of all pairwise bacterial comparisons." http://www.jci.org/articles/view/72333 View in LinkedIn