Developments in Brief : Miniature Shotgun Blasts Foreign Genes Successfully Into Plant Cells

Foreign genes can be blasted into plant cells with a miniature shotgun, a process that someday could prove handy for genetic engineering, researchers say.

Two kinds of genes injected into onion skin cells have continued to function, according to Cornell University scientists, who reported on their work in the current issue of the British journal Nature.

If foreign genes will also continue to function stably after being blasted into smaller cell types, such as those that can generate entire plants, the shotgun method might overcome limitations of other means of inserting genes, they said.

Scientists now insert genes by methods such as using bacteria to ferry them into plant cells, but the bacteria do not infect all kinds of plants.

Genes act as blueprints for cells and oversee many cell activities. Scientists insert foreign genes into plants to give the plants new characteristics.

The shotgun experiments used spheres measuring about four-hundredths the width of a human hair. The spheres were coated with genes from a virus in one experiment and a bacterium in another test.

In each case, the particles were then put on the front of a special nylon bullet about a third of an inch long. The gun was then aimed at a patch of about 2,000 onion skin cells, covering about one-fifth of a square inch.

A blank explosive charge propelled the bullet to the end of the four-inch barrel, where a plate stopped it. The spheres flew another four to six inches into the onion cells.

The spheres typically entered about 90% of the cells, and experiments showed that the inserted genes continued to work, researchers said.