Neutralizing explosives with genetically engineered tobacco plants

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The Washington Post, May 3, 1999, pA11.  Full text available at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-05/03/031l-050399-idx.html

British researchers may have found a way to use tobacco plants to
save lives. They genetically engineered tobacco seedlings to safely clean
up dangerous dumps of abandoned explosives.

In the May issue of Nature Biotechnology, Brian S. Hooker and Rodney S.
Skeen of the Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, Washington, said
nearly two dozen sites in the United States contain explosives such as TNT
and nitroglycerin, some of which "are literally on the verge of
exploding."

Neil C. Bruce and his University of Cambridge colleagues engineered
tobacco plants to produce an enzyme normally found in bacteria and known
to neutralize the unstable ingredients in explosives such as TNT and
nitroglycerin.

The researchers said "this example suggests that transgenic plants
expressing microbial degradative genes may provide a generally applicable
strategy for bioremediation of organic pollutants in soil."