Plants as Chemical Factories

摘要

Synthetic fabrics have been a great boon to busy people. But they're not perfect. "Wrinkle-free polyester," for example, just doesn't have the feel of cotton. But a new specialty fiber that couples the touch and look of natural cotton with the easy care of synthetics may now be on the way—thanks to recombinant DNA. Scientists at Agracetus Inc., a biotechnology company in Middleton, Wisconsin, are genetically engineering cotton plants to produce fibers with a polyester-like compound in the normally hollow fiber cores (Science, 16 December 1994, p. 1811). And Ganesh Kishore, who heads a plant biotech group at Monsanto Corp. in St. Louis, says Agracetus's new cotton plant is "just the tip of the iceberg. Biotechnology is completely changing the concept of plant-based raw materials." Whereas plant geneticists once focused exclusively on improving the quality of food plants, they are now increasingly turning their attention to creating plants that can provide a wide array of nonfood, nonfeed materials.