Sex Perfume: The Future of Pest Control?
Researchers at the Earlham Institute have used precision gene engineering techniques to turn tobacco plants into solar-powered factories for moth sex pheromones, which can be used to trap or distract male insects from finding a mate, replacing the need for expensive and toxic chemical pesticides. The production of these molecules can be efficiently managed so as not to hamper normal plant growth. The team fine-tuned the production of the pheromones by introducing molecular switches to precisely regulate their expression, allowing them to control both the timing and level of gene expression. The team hopes their work will pave the way to routinely using plants to produce a wide range of valuable natural products.