Chinese scientists have recently succeeded in using tobacco to produce bacteria for the treatment of foot-and-mouth disease that is spreading fast in western Europe.
Scientists with a Shanghai research institute on plant's physiology and ecology, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, obtained the essential part of the virus protein by using the gene technique and putting it in the virus of tobacco flower leaves.
The newly composed virus then was inoculated onto leaves, where a vast quantity of bacteria for the disease can be extracted.
Researchers said that bacteria obtained this way has proved successful in experiments on guinea pigs, while following experiments on pigs and cows are in the process.
Traditional bacteria for the disease was made directly from the virus, usually by injecting the cultivated virus directly into healthy livestock to stimulate their immunity function.
However, improper use of the bacteria is very likely to lead to an outbreak of the disease, as a result of which the EU has put a ban on the use of such bacteria.
Scientists later worked out another method to obtain the bacteria by zymosis of microorganism though, it turned out to be too costly.
By comparison, tobacco grows fast, rendering itself an ideal botanical reactor.
(People's Daily 03/06/2001)
