The isolation of a Glycine max cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (P450) cDNA designated CYP71A10 that conferred linuron resistance to laboratory-grown, transgenic Nicotiana tabacum seedlings was previously reported. A nonsegregating transgenic N. tabacum line has been established that possesses two independent copies of the G. max CYP71A10 transgene. Five-week-old progeny plants of this selected line were grown in a controlled environmental chamber and treated with linuron using either pretransplant incorporated (PTI) or postemergence (POST) applications. CYP71A10-transformed N. tabacum was more tolerant to linuron than the wild type for both application methods. The transgenic N. tabacum line tolerated an approximately 16-fold and 12-fold higher rate of linuron than wild-type N. tabacum when the herbicide was applied PTI or POST, respectively. These results provide evidence that plant-derived P450 genes can be employed effectively to confer herbicide resistance to transgenic plants.

One of the big success stories in synthetic biology is the re-engineering of an existing organism to produce the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. The drug is also found naturally in extracts of the plant Artemisia annua (Wormwood), but demand is far oustripping supply and extracting the drug from the plants is complex, time-consuming and expensive. In this lecture, Jay Keasling describes how he and his laboratory re-designed yeast microbes into living mini anti-malaria drug factories producing artemisinin more cheaply and efficiently. The lecture was given at the 12 May 2009 launch of the Imperial-based Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation—established in partnership with the London School of Economics and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of a science and innovation award.