Research into new pharmaceuticals has produced an unanticipated by-product: Petunias that glow in the dark
A long exposure photo of Firefly petunias, which are genetically modified to produce their own light through bioluminescencein molecular and chemical biology, using his work with bioluminescence to understand how molecules interacted with diseases. His work started as a graduate student when the team he was on inserted a firefly gene into a tobacco plant.
The petunia with bright, white flowers looks like something you'd buy in spring at a garden nursery. But, when the lights are turned out, the petals slowly start lighting up with a greenish, white glow. The plant is always glowing, it's just our eyes that need to adjust to see the light. The newest buds are the brightest and punctuate the glowing flowers.
"The first gene takes a metabolite and turns it into an intermediate," Wood explained,"The second gene takes the intermediate and turns it into the actual fuel for the bioluminescence. The third gene is what actually makes the light. And then the last gene takes the product from the light reaction and recycles it back to the starting point.
The Firefly Petunia emanates light because it's been modified with genes from a bioluminescent mushroom "Overwhelmingly, the response was, wait a minute, it's a petunia. We're not eating it. The orange gene came from maize. Why? Why can't we plant this?" Blazek remembered.Chris Beytes, at Ball Publishing, who oversees several horticulture publications, said the Firefly Petunia could open up gardening to new customers.
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