Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 7:52 PM

Subject: The 35S CaMV plant virus promoter is active in human enterocyte-like cells

"In Norway, Terje Traavik, scientific director of the University of Tromsso's
Institute of Genetic Ecology, just published a study in European Food
Research and Technology (January 2006, p. 185): he demonstrates that an element of
the genetic structures used to modify a plant, the catalyst 35S CaMV, can
provoke gene expression in cultured human cells. Now, according to GMO
promoters, that catalyst normally only operates that way in plants."

This is the ref (Myhre et al, 2006) -- in case some have not seen it:

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Article

European Food Research and Technology
Publisher: Springer-Verlag GmbH
ISSN: 1438-2377 (Paper) 1438-2385 (Online)
DOI: 10.1007/s00217-005-0154-3
Issue:  Volume 222, Numbers 1-2
Date:  January 2006
Pages: 185 - 193

Original Paper
The 35S CaMV plant virus promoter is active in human enterocyte-like cells

Marit R. Myhre2, 4, Kristin A. Fenton4, Julia Eggert3, Kaare M. Nielsen3 and Terje Traavik1, 2 

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(1) 
GENOK-Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, Science Park, N-9294 Tromsų, Norway
(2) 
Department of Microbiology and Virology, Institute of Medical Biology, University of Tromsų, N-9037 Tromsų, Norway
(3)
Department of Pharmacy, University of Tromsų, N-9037 Tromsų, Norway
(4) 
Both authors have contributed equally, University of Tromsų, N-9037 Tromsų, Norway

Received: 22 May 2005  Accepted: 5 September 2005  Published online: 20 October 2005
Abstract  

The 35S cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) promoter is commonly used to drive transgene expression in the genetically engineered (GE) crop plants that have been commercialized so far. Whether, and how far, the 35S promoter might be active in mammalian cells has been scientifically unsettled and controversial. Very recently it was established that the 35S promoter is transcriptionally active following transient reporter gene transfections in continuous cell lines of human [J Biotechnol 103:197–202, 2003] and hamster ovary [Environ Biosafety Res 3:41–47, 2004] fibroblasts. The initial exposure of a human organism to DNA from GE food takes place in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Hence, we have now investigated the promoter capacity of 35S in human enterocyte-like cells. We constructed expression vectors with 35S promoter inserted in front of two reporter genes encoding firefly luciferase and green fluorescent protein (GFP), respectively, and performed transient transfection experiments in the human enterocyte-like cell line Caco-2. It was demonstrated that the 35S CaMV promoter was able to drive the expression of both reporter genes to significant levels, although the protein expression levels might seem modest compared to those obtained with the strong promoters derived from human cytomegalo virus (hCMV) and simian virus 40 (SV40). Furthermore, computer-based searches of the 35S CaMV DNA sequence for putative mammalian transcription factor binding motifs gave a high number of hits. Some of the identified motifs indicate that transcriptional activation by the 35S CaMV promoter may be stronger in other human and animal cell types than in those investigated so far.

Keywords  35S Cauliflower mosaic virus promoter - Caco-2 cells - Green fluorescent protein - Luciferase - Transfection

Terje Traavik
Email: terjet@genok.org
Phone: +47-77-64-43-79/95-81-75-37
Fax: +47-77-64-61-00

The references of this article are secured to subscribers.

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Time for 'Glasnost' and 'Perestroika'
in Modern Science

Tearing Down Biotech's 'Berlin Wall'
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/genomicsparadigm.htm

The Fundamental Scientific Error
of Pursuing Transgenics Before Competency in Genomics

[extract]

... In August 1998 the public controversy over GM in the UK hit the headlines in dramatic fashion as a result of a documentary programme by Granada TV's 'World In Action'. It featured Dr Arpad Pusztai who told the programme of his concerns regarding the food safety of GM potatoes which he had been testing as part of a government contract. Shortly thereafter Dr Pusztai was suspended from his research post, despite (or perhaps because of) his reputation as a world authority in the research area being executed.

The man charged with sacking Dr Pusztai, the Director of the Rowett Research Institute Professor Phillip James, had previously been commissioned by Tony Blair to produce a paper on the then proposed Food Standards Agency. Ironically Professor James was quoted in a Scottish Newspaper six months before Pusztai's dismissal as saying: "The perception that everything is totally straightforward and safe [with GM food] is utterly naive. I don't think we fully understand the dimensions of what we're getting into." Given such views it begs the question as to what kind of external pressure he was placed under to dismiss Pusztai.

If elements of the governmental apparatus should be involved behind the scenes in discouraging an open scientific debate, then what does this situation say about the modern-day relationship between government, commerce and science?....

...... At the time of Pusztai's work GM food products had already begun entering the global food chain. Yet according to evidence given to a House of Commons committee by Pusztai's co-author Dr Stanley Ewen, there was only one paper that had been published in the peer reviewed scientific literature on the safety of genetically modified food. That paper was by scientists at Monsanto.

Dr Ewen advised the committee that the paper "describes the feeding value of GM soybeans in rats, chickens, catfish and dairy cattle. This single paper refers to microscopy of rat pancreas but gut microscopy is not mentioned if performed. Scientific advice is not available for informed consideration and our studies [carried out by Dr Pusztai and myself] were designed to establish the normality of the target organ after feeding GM potatoes ... My report would be: after comparison of sections from rats fed genetically modified potatoes with sections from control rats, there are significant differences in crypt length that cannot be explained by the insertion of the Galanthus nivalis gene . This work has been submitted for publication in a peer reviewed journal...." . The paper was subsequently published in the highly respected medical journal, the 'Lancet'.

Pusztai's work was especially troubling to the scientific, commercial and political interests concerned because, in his view, it indicated that the adverse effects identified were not due to the foreign gene inserted into the potatoes, but rather to the process of genetic engineering itself. If that was the case then there were potentially serious implications for many GM crops and not just the potatoes in question. It is not difficult to see, therefore, why such powerful forces were mobilised to try and discredit the work.

However, with the row over this research creating divided opinion within the scientific community, ultimately the Royal Society was forced to fudge its final verdict by calling for the work to be redone, as confirmed in an email from the Royal Society 11 November 1999 to nlpwessex. The email states: "The article that you forwarded to Dr Bowden from the Natural Law Party accused the Royal Society of being critical of the methodology of Dr Pusztai's work while failing to call for his work to be repeated.  On the contrary, the Society did in fact call for Dr Pusztai's work to be repeated, taking in to account the errors in the original work [as indicated in] our report, 'Review of data on possible toxicity of GM potatoes'..."

Significantly the British Government has declined to do so, even though it originally thought the work so important that it allocated £1.6 million of tax payers money to the project. At the outset Dr Pusztai and his team did not anticipate that any adverse effect would be found. As soon as Dr Pusztai reported findings to the contrary, however, the government immediately lost interest in the research thereby lending credence to suspicions of direct political influence over the attempts at scientific censorship that had begun.

Interestingly the Royal Society, in its own review of Pusztai's data and analysis, emphasises importance of peer review for such safety testing and that: "It would be necessary to carry out a large number of extremely complex tests on many different strains of GM and non-GM potatoes."

So where are all the examples of such complex tests in relation to any GM food, let alone potatoes, which the Royal Society apparently regards as necessary? A subsequent literature review by Pusztai himself in June 2001 makes fascinating reading. On the whole such tests for GM foods of any kind are rare, if they exist at all. An earlier literature review published in the journal Science June 2000 revealed at that time (i.e. several years after the introduction of GM foods into the global food chain) a general lack of proper experimental studies on GM food safety. The deficiency that was identified resulted in a title for the article of 'Health Risks of GM Foods: Many Opinions but Few Data'.

In his own literature review Dr Pusztai states that "In fact, no peer-reviewed publications of clinical studies on the human health effects of GM food exist". However, just a few weeks later the results of work carried out by scientists commissioned by the UK's Food Standard Agency were announced. The Guardian reported on these 17 July 2002 stating: "British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions.... many of the controversial crops have antibiotic-resistant marker genes inserted into them at an early stage in development. If genetic material from these marker genes can also find its way into [bacteria in] the human stomach, as experiments at Newcastle University suggest is likely, then people's resistance to widely used antibiotics could be compromised. The research, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, is the world's first known trial of GM foods on human volunteers".

Notably the uptake of GM DNA by gut bacteria discovered in this study was evident after volunteers had taken just one meal with GM soya in it (although the presence of bacteria containing GM material could have reflected previous exposure to GM food already consumed by the subjects).

More worryingly, however, the Food Standards Agency has tried to downplay the significance of the findings. It maintains that because no GM material was found in the stools of the subjects, the study "showed in real-life conditions with human volunteers, no GM material survived the passage through the entire human digestive tract". Clearly such an observation is not inconsistent with the take up of GM DNA material by gut bacteria as found in the study, yet the agency ducks the issue with its own irrelevant conclusion. This is a situation which smacks of 'Thought Police' style obfuscation on the part of the FSA, a body which has also tried to block EU proposals for more stringent GM food labelling.

Ironically Pusztai himself came to Britain after the failed Hungarian uprising of 1956, in order to escape the repression and dictatorship that resided behind the Iron Curtain. In August 1998 he was to abruptly encounter the less visible version of repression that now seems to lurk beneath the surface of the 'free' world. It descended upon him with its full force following his now notorious interview with Granda TV lasting all of 150 seconds.

However, a great deal of water has passed under the bridge since then and the rehabilitation of Dr Pusztai's reputation may not be so far off.

Just as Gorbachev dealt with some of the absurd political edifices and vested interests of his time, the moment has surely come for the great reforming scientists of the post cold war era (assuming there are some) to emerge and confront the entrenched nonsense and cognitive dissonance of modern biotechnology's own 'Berlin wall'. The basic problem is there for all to see. It is now simply a matter of tearing it down with an unchallengable combination of intellectual honesty and moral courage....

NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex