Carnation kamikaze

-- (Credit: Rustam Vania)VIRUSES plaguing crops may soon
meet their nemesis in what may be
described as kamikaze genes residing
in carnations. Martin Hartley of the
University of Warwick has inserted
into the tobacco plant a suicide gene
taken from carnations to test its efficacy (New Scientist, Vol 141, No. 1994).

Hartley believes that if the suicide gene protects the tobacco plant
against a virus, it may even come to
the rescue of crops like tomato and potato.

The gene produces a com-pound
that is harmless in plant cells until
the cell is invaded by a virus. The
virus sets off certain biochemical
changes in the cell that turn the compound into a poison, killing both the
infected cell and the unsuspecting virus.