Blue Rose - Genetically Engineered Roses

Genetically Engineered Roses

After thirteen years of collaborative research by an Australian company - Florigene, and a Japanese company - Suntory, created a rose in 2004 employing genetic engineering containing blue pigments. The company and press have described it as a blue rose, but it is lavender or pale mauve in color.

The genetic engineering involved three alterations - adding two genes, and interfering with another. First the researchers inserted a gene for the blue plant pigment delphinidin cloned from the pansy into an Old Garden Cardinal de Richelieu red rose that had been bred for cut flower production, resulting in a dark burgundy rose. The researchers then used RNA interference (RNAi) technology to depress all color production by endogenous genes by blocking a crucial protein in color production, called dihydroflavonol 4-reductase) (DFR), and adding a variant of that protein that would not be blocked by the RNAi but that would allow the delphinidin to work. If the strategy worked perfectly, in theory it could produce a truly blue rose. However the RNAi did not completely knock out the activity of DFR, so the resulting flower still made some of its natural red color, and so was a red-tinged blue - a mauve or lavender. Additionally, rose petals are more acidic than pansy petals, and the pansy delphinidin in the transgenic roses is degraded by the acidity in the rose petals. Further deepening the blue colour would therefore require further modifications, by traditional breeding or further genetic engineering, to make the rose less acidic.

As of 2008 the GM roses were being grown in test batches at the Martino Cassanova seed institution in South Hampshire, according to company spokesman Atsuhito Osaka. Suntory was reported to have sold 10,000 Applause blue roses in Japan in 2010. Prices were from 2,000 to 3,000 Yen or US$22 to 35 a stem. The company announced the North American sales would commence in the fall of 2011.