Re: Where did the genes come from for the Round Up imune Soyabeans?

Round-up or Glyphosate is a very effective herbicide which kills all kinds of plants, including crop plants. This made it necessary to apply it very carefully to assure that only the undesirable weeds would be killed (such as dandelions in your yard). Scientists looked for many years for plants which were resistant to glyphosate, but could find none. Bacteria were found which were resistant, and a gene for the resistance from a species of Agrobacterium was transferred into soybean making it resistant to the herbicide.

Glyphosate affects an enzyme which leads to the synthesis of several amino acids in plants (the aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan), thus stopping protein synthesis. Bacteria use a different enzyme which is not affected by glyphosate to do this reaction and therefore are not affected. The bacterial gene and enzyme can function in the plant, thus allowing the soybean plant to survive in the presence of the herbicide when the bacterial gene is inserted. Humans do not make these amino acids (they are required in our diet, however) so glyphosate would not halt our protein synthesis.

To learn more about the process of developing these plants you can go to the site of the company that did it at
Roundup
To learn more about herbicides go to:
herbicides
Also you can find out about amino acid synthesis and the enzyme affected by glyphosate (enolpyruvylshikimate-phosphate synthase) in a biochemistry textbook. Ask a science teacher for help with this.