THE environmental protestors who vandalised a stand of genetically modified
trees in Berkshire in the dead of the night on 11 July have been less successful
than they hoped.
Not only has their action helped improve the image of genetic engineering by
drawing attention to an application intended to protect the environment, but the
company involved says the trees should still produce enough wood to complete its
experiment.
Zeneca Plant Science grew the altered poplars at its Jealott鈥檚 Hill
experimental station near Bracknell. The protesters tore strips of bark from
some of the trees, planted in 1995, leaving them to wilt and die. Younger trees,
planted in 1996, were cut and bent double.
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But the company is confident that the wood from the older trees can still be
turned into paper as planned. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not downhearted,鈥� says Nigel Poole, head of
regulatory affairs at Zeneca Plant Science. 鈥淭he other nice thing is that total
strangers phoned us up to suggest how we might save the trees. There鈥檚 been a
lot of local anger about the incident.鈥�
The site contained 64 normal poplars as well as 88 genetically modified
trees. 鈥淚t was a small coppice, and they were all mixed up so you couldn鈥檛 tell
which was which,鈥� says Poole.
The altered trees had been engineered to disrupt enzymes involved in the
hardening of lignin, the polymer that reinforces plant cell walls and accounts
for up to a third of the dry weight of woody plants. In papermaking, lignin has
to be removed by treating wood pulp with a chlorine-based bleach. Zeneca hopes
that paper made from its trees will need up to 15 per cent less bleach and save
on energy鈥攎aking the process kinder to the environment.
In half the modified poplars, the gene for the enzyme cinnamyl alcohol
dehydrogenase was neutralised. In the other half, a gene which makes the enzyme
O-methyl transferase was silenced. 鈥淲e鈥檝e not altered the amount of
lignin produced, simply its structure,鈥� says Poole. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a more open structure,
so it鈥檚 easier to pull apart chemically.鈥� The company harvested the dying trees
earlier this week so that papermaking experiments can go ahead.
In a statement released via the Genetic Engineering Network, an alliance of
groups concerned about developments in biotechnology, the activists responsible
for the damage argue that genetic modification of trees is 鈥渁 major threat to
the environment鈥�. They claim that altered genes from Zeneca鈥檚 poplars could have
spread to other trees.
Poole contests these claims. He points out that the trees were all female and
thus unable to produce pollen. Although they were too young to flower, he adds,
any flowers would have been removed manually as soon as they appeared,
preventing pollination.