This tobacco does not cause cancer

2002/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ingurumena

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have presented a tobacco plant capable of degrading trinitrotoluene (TNT). This explosive, which has been used for many years, is a cancer generator and, although the deposits containing the TNT have been destroyed, the contaminated lands generating problems. English biotechnologists have found a plant solution, introducing the genes of the bacterial enzyme that degrades TNT into the genome of the tobacco plant. Unlike the normal plant, the genetically modified plant is able to grow in a soil with a large amount of TNT. In the in vitro study, 20% of TNT was degraded in a week and, although they did not believe it, the plant does not accumulate any toxic substances.