研究人员研制出能抵抗除草剂麦草畏(dicamba)的农作物植物，麦草畏是一种对环境相对友好的除草剂。由于有抵抗力的野草种群的出现，其他除草剂的效率正在下降，所以用遗传改造来抵抗麦草畏也许能为农业中的野草控制提供一种新战略。在研究一种能降解麦草畏的土壤细菌时，Mark R. Behrens和同事找到了将除草剂转化为一个对植物无害的化合物的酶。然后这些研究人员将这个酶的基因转移到几种农作物植物中，用麦草畏处理过这些植物后，该酶能够阻碍除草剂使其达不到毒药的水平。文章作者指出，麦草畏是一种广泛使用的、廉价、环境友好的除草剂，不在土壤中长久存在，而且对野生生物以及人类几乎不具有毒性。
英文摘要：
Patricia L. Herman,1
Thomas E. Clemente,2,3,4 Donald P. Weeks1,4
The advent of biotechnology-derived, herbicide-resistant crops has revolutionized farming practices in many countries. Facile, highly effective, environmentally sound, and profitable weed control methods have been rapidly adopted by crop producers who value the benefits associated with biotechnology-derived weed management traits. But a rapid rise in the populations of several troublesome weeds that are tolerant or resistant to herbicides currently used in conjunction with herbicide-resistant crops may signify that the useful lifetime of these economically important weed management traits will be cut short. We describe the development of soybean and other broadleaf plant species resistant to dicamba, a widely used, inexpensive, and environmentally safe herbicide. The dicamba resistance technology will augment current herbicide resistance technologies and extend their effective lifetime. Attributes of both nuclear- and chloroplast-encoded dicamba resistance genes that affect the potency and expected durability of the herbicide resistance trait are examined.
1 Department of Biochemistry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
2 Center for Biotechnology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
3 Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
4 Plant Science Initiative, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Present address: Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO U.S.A.
Present address: School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dweeks1@unl.edu
