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What are the survival skills of plants?

Genetic Engineering: What are some of the pitfalls to splicing electric eel DNA into plants, so that they may generate electricity?

  • A few researchers are already using plants to power up small circuits.  It doesn't seem very difficult, just an insertion of electrodes.  Here are some peer-reviewed articles on the subject: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5282623&tag=1 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tee.21754/abstract The amount of electricity which could be generated is very, very small.  But -- if DNA from another (electricity-producing) organism could be genetically engineered into some plant DNA, this very well could be a viable alternative energy industry. What are some of the technical problems one might encounter, as a scientist, in doing this?  What kind of facilities would be necessary, and what skills are involved?  What plant species might be good candidates for this?  Are there other animal species which would be better than the electric eel, to consider for the DNA donation? Thanks so much!

  • Answer:

    Aside from the problems mentions, there are also structural and developmental issues. Electric eels have three pairs of abdominal organs that allow them to produce electricity: The main organ, Hunter's organ, and Sach's organ. As Patrick notes, the proximity of electrocytes to each other is important for electricity transmission. So you have to address questions like: Where in the plant will you keep your clumps of electricity-generating cells? Will the plant have the structural integrity to maintain them? How will you manipulate developmental pathways to allow these cells to grow without interfering with other structures the plants need? Of course, not all important information about genes is encoded in the DNA sequence itself. There are likely epigenetic modifications to the DNA that affect transcription, as well as transcriptional factors and regulators, enhancers and repressors for alternate splicing, and other molecules involved in the regulation of transcription and translation of these genes. How will you make sure the electricity-producing genes are expressed like you want, in the amount that you want? Electric eels don't use their electrogeneration all the time, so you'd have to find a way to make it more constant, too. Perhaps the greatest pitfall of all is that it's not clear there's much benefit at all. Sure, it sounds cool, but I doubt it would be any more efficient than a well-designed solar panel. The most important lesson to take away from this is that genes don't act in isolation; they exist in webs of biochemical pathways, and it's hard to tug at one without affecting others.

Shan Kothari at Quora Visit the source

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I don't think this is as simple as just 'genetically engineering the "electricity" gene into the plant'. There are specialized cells in electric eels (and electric rays) called "electrocytes".  These cells have ATP-powered ion channels in their cell membrane (Na+ and K+, both pumped out of the cell).  Of course, current is the motion of charged particles, and cations (Na+ and K+) are charged particles.  So if you take a bunch of electrocytes, stack them on top of each other, and have them pump out the cations, you get flow of cations which is current.  However, these electrocytes require direct contact to each other (or pretty close to direct contact) in order to generate a cumulative potential (voltage). If you remember a bit of high school or university freshman biology, you recall that plant cells have cell walls around their cell membranes.  Adapting these electrocyte-specific ion channels to plants would be a huge scientific feat.  I suppose it would eventually involve genetic engineering to transfer the modified ion channel gene(s) over to the plant, but the major work would be simply getting the ion channel to insert, fit in, and stay in the wall+membrane of the plant cell.  You would also need to ensure that there is some electrolyte-containing liquid outside for the cations to be pumped into. This process burns quite a bit of ATP, so there would need to be a source of ATP feeding the plant-electrocytes, or mitochondria would need to be introduced and a source of glucose would be used. There are plenty of hindrances to this project.  If you really want to, though, it should be possible.

Patrick Reilly

There is an implication in the original question that such a modification might act as a power source. But any energy generation system is really an energy conversion system. Plants operate in a very low power domain relative to animals, so even if a mechanism to tap some of the energy existed, the harvest, if you will, would be minimal. Hence I agree with Shan that there would be little benefit.

Tom Kent

This is a very interesting question. But before I answer, I must give my apologies on not being a geneticist. Genetic engineering is a very touchy subject. Awhile back, corn was spliced with Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium used as a biological pesticide. This resulted in pollen on the corn stalks being toxic to monarch butterflies. Gene splicing can have catastrophic effects if done incorrectly. Genetic engineering can also result in death of the organism if done improperly. Genetic engineering has quite a way to go, though. I must reiterate I'm not a geneticist by any means. Genetic engineering can be successful if done correctly. I suppose it is possible to splice eel genes into plants. As I stated previously however, genetic engineering has quite a way to go.

Tyler Hooks

It's a bad idea-- because of potential side-effects. To list just one for example: what happens if a colony of these plants grows wild in a area-- causing all humans and wildlife in the area to be exposed to strong electric fields ? That could be dangerous- because strong electric fields have been known to cause cancers-- both in humans and animals. There are many other similar side-effects... as well as the ethical issues of releasing such species into the wild.

Nalin Savara

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