[medhahegde]

The genetically modified plants have contributed to commercial benefits in the production of crops. Also, there are many other products in the line that will contribute more towards environmental benefits, quality of food, pharmaceutical production and also in non food crops. Instances of these products that are novel initiatives in genetic engineering of plants include banana that can be harvested earlier due to fast ripening, rice with higher contents of beta-carotene and iron popularly known as golden rice (beta-carotene is an essential micronutrient that is converted to Vitamin A in the body), maize with enhanced nourishment value, tomatoes with higher flavonol content (flavonols are present in many varieties of vegetables and fruits which are powerful antioxidants and also deliver protection against heart diseases), maize which are drought tolerant and with enhanced phosphorus availability, plants with arsenic tolerance, obtaining edible vaccines from vegetables and fruits, trees with low lignin content for paper manufacturing and so on.

A new advancement in plant genetic engineering is the utilization of Antisense RNA, to shield or protect the plants from viruses. The nucleotide strands that are generated in the cell and are complementary to particular mRNA are termed as Antisense RNA. It can be produced by inverting the coding portion of a gene with reference to its promoter. The mRNA and its corresponding Antisense RNA can hybridize to form double stranded structure that is no longer recognised by the ribosomes (protein synthesizing machinery) and the expression of this mRNA is suppressed and it is broken down rapidly. Thus scientists are able to inactivate the specific genes of interest without interfering with the others. As an example of this technology, the reversal of the gene from BYMV (bean yellow mosaic virus) and inserting it to the tobacco plant with strong promoter has resulted in the production of a variety of tobacco plants that are quite resistant to the virus. This discovery is of significant importance since at present there are no other efficient,environmentally friendly techniques available to control most of the plant viruses.