Plants as a source of light 

A new source of renewable energy was idealized by English students: plants as a source of light. The process is possible using transgenic plants.

There are 4 methods to create a transgenic plant: microinjection, gun gen or biolistic, agrobacterium and electroporation.

The microinjection is used more in animal cells, and is like a shoot, but at a microscopic level.

The gen gun is really a gun that shoots in the plant cells. It is the most used technique nowadays. The bullet is made from tungsten, an inert metal and is covered with a DNA sample that contains the gene of interest, like resistance to drought or fluorescence. The shoot is very fast because the bullet is propelled by helium gas.

The agrobacterium is a bacteria that lives in the soil discovered years ago and that is capable of introduce its DNA in plant cell through a cytoplasmic bridge.

The electroporation consists in to induce, through an electric current, the opening of cell’s pores, allowing the entrance of the vector that contains the gene of interest. This is reversible, so after some seconds an opposite current closes the pores.

So this methods allows to create much incredible things, like a group of English students had the brilliant idea to create fluorescent trees to substitute the street lighting. They created the fluorescent plants from a gene isolated from de genetic code of fireflies that produces the protein responsible for the fireflie’s light.

Thereby, we can see that the transgenesis can be used of many ways, not only to improve the global production of food, and the possibilities will arise with the time. Who knows which others incredible ideas will appear.