Transgenic Rubber Tree

Genetic Engineering

            The advancement of technology in genetic engineering can make almost anything impossible before become possible. One of the easiest examples is glow in the dark pig. If we live 15 years ago, especially for me that living in village, if one person says that he saw a pig that is glowing, everyone will laugh him of and say the person is crazy. But with genetic engineering technology, everything can change.

            As mentioned earlier, I am a village boy. I used to become a rubber tapper. Every day, rubber tapper will go out to tap the latex from the tree. There are many problem that the rubber tapper facing when tapping the latex. The example of the problems is they cannot tap the rubber tree if it is raining, some rubber tree does not give out latex, there is a period when the latex that is produced by the tree is only a little, and many more. So, is genetic engineering can help the rubber tapper to overcome their problems?

Transgenic Rubber Tree

Rubber tree is a tree that can produce latex or natural rubber that is very important nowadays and our country, Malaysia is the world’s third largest producer of natural rubber. The species of the rubber tree that is planted and tapped in Malaysia is from species Hevea brasiliensis. Apart from the latex, its timber also is very important especially in furniture industry.

The demand of the natural rubber is increasing for every year. So, to make sure that the production of the natural rubber is up to the demand, scientists are trying to produce the rubber trees that have improved characteristics such as disease resistance and high latex yield. There are two main criteria for the transgenic rubber tree that is tried to be created that is to improve rubber tree production and production of commercially valuable protein.

Firstly is about the rubber tree production. The scientist in Malaysia tried to increase the production of rubber tree by researching about the genes that is related to the biosynthesis of rubber and girth increment of the tree. In India, they have developed genetically modified rubber plans by utilizing the enzyme MnSDD. These plants is expected to overcome the adverse effect of global warming and climate change, especially prolonged drought and tapping panel dryness (brownbast). The climate change lead to dry period become longer and the moisture level is lower in India. This condition make the production of natural rubber is low, so, with these new varieties of rubber tree, the production of natural rubber can be increased.  These rubber trees are incorporated with the target gene (MnSOD) from rubber itself. 

Secondly, genetically modified rubber tree is created to produce commercially valuable protein. Can we imagine the latex of the rubber tree producing insulin to be used by human? That is what Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM) tried to do. They try to incorporate certain gene to the rubber tree so that the rubber tree can produce the desired protein. They have successfully inserted and expressed reporter gene known as gus gene to the rubber tree and the transgenic rubber tree produced the functional GUS protein in its latex. Then, Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB) inserted an antibody gene against coat protein of an oral dental bacterium in rubber plants. The functional antibody was also expressed in the latex serum. A human gene (human serum albumin cDNA) also have been inserted to the rubber plant’s genome and successfully expressed in the latex serum of the plant. With the success of the expression of that genes, scientist now trying to investigate human insulin gene and human atrial natriuretic factor gene for the insertion and expression of the protein in the latex of the transgenic rubber. If the research is success, then we can make insulin and other important protein that is needed in medical field in large amount.

In conclusion, the rubber tappers in Malaysia do not need to worry with their rubber tree. The advancement of genetic engineering technology can help them increasing the latex production, disease resistance, and if they lucky, they will get much more profit if the research to produce protein that is needed in medical field successful. But, that is only if the governments approve these transgenic rubber trees to be planted commercially.

The Issues about Transgenic Rubber Tree

            Every genetically modified organism has their own issues, that’s including transgenic rubber tree. The main issues that I will bring here is the safety. Everyone wants to live in safe places; do not want to live in dangerous place. So, the issue here is it is really safe if we approve these transgenic rubber trees to be planted commercially?

            Safety here have two meaning; to us, human or to the environment. Firstly is the safety to the human itself. As we all know, human do not eat rubber tree product such as its leaves, latex, root, and every part of it. It is not like the others popular transgenic plants such as tomato, soy beans, and others that we eat them. Although there is also worries about the consumption of the protein produce by the transgenic rubber tree, we should not worry enough as the protein need to be highly purified and the DNA elements would not presented to the consumers. So, we do not need to worry about our health if the plantations of transgenic rubber trees are approved.

            Secondly is about the safety of the environment. That is the major concern for the environmentalist that afraid the introduction of these new transgenic rubber tree can effect the environment, destroy the normal rubber tree, will create danger or new disease to the rubber tree if they cross pollinate with normal rubber tree. The reproduction of the rubber tree also cannot be controlled as they can spread their seed far away. This will make it is hard to destroy this plant if the negative impact of the transgenic plant is rises. There is also concern about the leaves of the transgenic rubber tree that is eaten by the worm or birds will affect them either genetically or physically. This will lead to a disastrous events to the environment, thus also will affecting human directly or indirectly.

            So, for now, there is no one country that is approving the commercialization of transgenic rubber plant either India or Malaysia.

Assignment biotech, law, ethics. Mut, sem 2, year 11/12