A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside has engineered an innovative genetic marker called RUBY. It produces a vivid red pigment identical to the betalain compounds found naturally in beets. <\/p>\n
This breakthrough development offers a safer, more visually apparent alternative to conventional antibiotic or herbicide resistance markers currently used in genetic modification research. Unlike traditional markers that can damage test cells, RUBY functions as a non-destructive visual indicator. When successfully incorporated into plant DNA, the genetic marker causes transformed cells to turn a distinctive red color detectable without specialized laboratory equipment. The researchers demonstrated RUBY’s practical application by creating genetically modified mustard plants that change color when exposed to the pesticide azinphos-ethyl. <\/p>\n
The food industry might utilize RUBY-modified plants as natural biosensors for detecting pesticide residues or other chemical contaminants in food production systems.<\/p>\n
Image Credit: University of California<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside has engineered an innovative genetic marker called RUBY.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[59189,267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-134902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetic-marker","9":"tag-genetics","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114577684752452457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}