Industrial Enzymes and Food in One Plant.

• Position: Brief Article

Some crops are grown for food and others to produce consumer goods, but a special group of potato plants now is doing both at once. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., have developed a specialized capability to control genes that are transplanted into a plant. With it, they are able to direct desirable traits into a specific portion of a plant, allowing dual use of one crop.

The experimental potatoes have sprouted valuable enzymes in the vines, while the tubers remain just plain potatoes to be baked, boiled, or turned into french fries. These transgenic plants have been modified to produce cellulase enzymes in the foliage. The cellulase-producing genes were isolated from bacterial and fungal organisms.

Cellulase is an enzyme used to break down plant material and is utilized in a wide variety of applications, from food processing to ethanol production. "The process can be adapted to create additional enzymes such as lipases and proteases used in pharmaceuticals [and] specialty chemical and industrial products," notes biochemical engineer Brian Hooker.

Currently, industrial enzymes are grown in fermenters, which is a labor- and...