Scientists from the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere at the Kyoto University in Japan have managed to identify the main gene responsible for carrying nicotine produced in the roots of the tobacco plants to its leaves. The team says that a new variety of the plant could be synthesized, one that would not comprise the gene and that would not contain the harmful substance. In addition, they say that the new type of tobacco could be engineered to carry beneficial substances, as well as to help smokers quit their habit without resorting to non-smoking methods.
According to the researchers led by professor Kazufumi Yazaki, nicotine is produced in the root of the plant, and is then carried to the leaves by the Nt-JAT1 gene, which stores it in vacuoles. These are similar to tiny deposit rooms, where water and other substances are stored. Nicotine gets trapped there, and is then inhaled when a person lights up his or her cigarette. Finding the gene "raised the possibility of developing a variety of tobacco that does not store nicotine in its leaves," Yazaki says.
Together with colleagues from the Ghent University of Belgium, the Japanese team has analyzed samples of the gene in the lab, and has noticed that, in cultures containing nicotine, Nt-JAT1 combines with the substance naturally, and carries it. Knowing its properties, genetic engineers have been easily able to reverse some of its coding, making it able to carry other substances, instead or forcing the gene to throw nicotine out of the plant.
"I wonder if cigarettes containing little nicotine would sell well. But the gene could also transport compounds that could be used as medicine," Nobukazu Shitan, who is an assistant professor at the Institute, states. He has told AFP that the lack of nicotine in these cigarettes would also benefit second-hand smokers, who will no longer be exposed to the harmful effects of nicotine when around others who actively smoke.
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