APHIDS are a significant crop pest, but it has proved difficult to produce genetically engineered plants to kill them. So a French team has devised a GM strategy targeting their reproductive ability.
Yvan Rahb茅 of INRA, the French agricultural research organisation in Villeurbanne, and his team genetically modified oilseed rape to make its sap produce a chemical called oryzacystatin, which blocks proteases, enzymes that break down proteins. When aphids ate the plants, their numbers fell by up to 40 per cent in two weeks (Plant Science, vol 164, p 441).
It appears that oryzacystatin stops aphid cells processing proteins, and that this reduces their ability to reproduce. Rahb茅 hopes the technology could one day also be used to create GM roses that are resistant to aphids.
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