"Wash well with water and have pesticides on it." Nearly every child will hear such embarrassment before eating fruit. Pesticide residues have become a major hidden danger of food safety.
Is there any way to eliminate pesticides that remain in fruits and vegetables? Scientists came up with a way: Let the bacteria "eat" them. The bacteria that "eat" pesticides are genetically engineered bacteria that have been implanted with specific genes that break down toxic substances.
A few days ago, the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a kind of bacteria. This kind of environmentally safe genetically engineered bacteria with suicide control function and degradable pesticides can "suicide" after completing the degradation task, thus eliminating people's influence on the environment. Worries.
It is reported that the utilization rate of pesticides is generally 10%, and about 90% remains in the environment, causing pollution to the environment. Due to the low efficiency of natural microbial degradation of pesticides and the narrow degradation spectrum, scientists have developed genetic engineering bacteria that can degrade chemical pesticides through genetic engineering techniques.
Genetically engineered bacteria are bacteria that have been transferred to foreign genes. The foreign genes that are normally transferred must be correctly expressed in the bacteria to produce the corresponding products, with specific biological functions. For example, common E. coli does not have the function of degrading chemical pesticides. If we transfer the organophosphorus hydrolase gene into Escherichia coli by gene recombination, the organophosphorus hydrolyzing enzyme is produced after the expression to degrade organophosphorus.
In addition to degrading pesticides, there are concerns that new genetically engineered bacteria will themselves cause pollution. Scientists explained that under certain conditions, the bacteria can be induced to "suicide." Through genetic engineering technology, scientists have transferred suicide components into the cells of genetically engineered bacteria. This component is a controlled suicide system. When temperatures, chemical conditions, and other requirements are met, the bacteria will lose their activity and die.