ELSEWHERE IN THE NEWS 



Philadelphia are working to put 

 the smell back into modern, 

 scentless flowers — courtesy of ge- 

 netic engineering. 



Dr. Croteau studies the genet- 

 ics of terpenoids — one of three 

 groups of molecules that give 

 flowers their smell — and he has 

 identified the gene for an enzyme 

 called limonene synthase, which 

 plays a critical role in terpenoid 

 production. Novaflora's research- 

 ers have managed to introduce 

 this gene into the cells of petu- 

 nias, which normally lack it. Now 

 they await the blossoming of the 

 first flowers grown from those 

 cells, to see if the gene will work 

 in its new home, if it does, the 

 petunias will smell of lemons — 

 and the way will be open to alter 

 the scents of other flowers by fit- 



ting them out with new terpenoids. 



Whether gardeners want unfa- 

 miliar scents remains to be seen, 

 but they've always seemed to 

 have been attracted to new and 

 unusual color. Researchers at 

 Florigene, a company based in 

 Melbourne, Australia, now have a 

 blue carnation. They created it by 

 introducing the gene for an en- 

 zyme called flavonoid-3'-5'- 

 hydrodoxylase, which they took 

 from petunias. This enzyme con- 

 verts the pigments of carnations — 

 which turn the petals of those 

 flowers pink, red, yellow, or 

 white — into the blue and mauve 

 found in violets. 



At the New Zealand Institute 

 for Crop and Food Research, 

 Kevin Davies and colleagues have 

 been trying a different approach. 



They are using "antisense" tech- 

 nology (which blocks the activity 

 of particular genes by gumming 

 up the translation of their mes- 

 sages into useful proteins) to 

 produce stripes and swirls in 

 lisianthus. No one knows just 

 how this produces these pat- 

 terns, but Joseph Mol and his 

 colleagues at the Free Univer- 

 sity, Amsterdam, are looking 

 into the biology behind it. 



Although technically demand- 

 ing, genetic engineering can pro- 

 duce new flower varieties much 

 faster than traditional selective 

 breeding. And it can be lucrative. 

 Florigene's blue carnations sell for 

 up to twice the price of their 

 "natural" counterparts. They 

 could sell for even more if they 

 smelled like lemon. 



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OCTOBER. NOVEMBER. 1998 



