Episode 6: Rainbow Roses and Genetic Proposals

You can’t get blue roses.

You can however get these;

Rainbow Roses – These pictures aren’t modified, I know because I took them. These are in fact my very own valentine’s flowers from my one and only (see there’s me with them in the bottom left with my uber shoulder padded jacked, I was having a power day in work *power shoulders*).

Rainbow Roses I have decided are the most beautiful flowering fantastic-ness I’ve ever had in my possession, if every colour symbolises its own range of emotions surely they are the flowery embodiment of a relationship?

These of course do not occur naturally, obviously or by now there would be so many planted in my garden you would see it from space. This is a human manipulation of plant biology with a dash of chemistry.

I finished my exclamations of astonishment, gratitude and thanks with multiple kisses and swiftly started my technical examination of these beauties, they clearly weren’t sprayed and they certainly didn’t grow that way so, what? Did a magician trap a My Little Pony with its rainbow tail in these flowers of mine?

This is how it’s done, Simplicity at its finest, turns out no My Little Ponies were harmed;

·         Obviously you cannot use a coloured rose, they have their own pigments and enzymes and would just stay that colour or turn brown. (You know all colours together make brown. Think about it.)You have to start with a white specimen. The Venezuela Rose is a ‘Hybrid Tea, cream rose’ which shows up all the colours perfectly.

·         The rose is cut at full bloom diagonally in order to expose the greatest area possible for water uptake by exposing a higher number of xylem vessels.

·          The cut flower is then ‘Stem-dyed’. 4 beakers of Red, Blue, Green and Yellow water soluble dyes are prepared separately. The flower stem is slit vertically into 4 pieces and 1 end placed in each beaker.

·         Wait a few hours...

·         And by the beauty of transpiration, ta dah!

 

Blue Roses – I’m afraid I reeled you in with a porky pie just now. Blue roses are no longer condemned to the realms of legend with unicorns and leprechauns, but have been created in much the same way as my rainbow numbers for decades now.

However, this century, a feat of genetic engineering has created something much better.

We can’t make unicorns they said. We can’t make leprechauns they said. But instead they proposed to create the eternal symbol of mystery – the Blue Rose.

Culturally they have been associated with hope against unattainable love.

Molecular geneticists proposed to create the Royal of Roses by altering its genetic makeup – DNA.

Roses simply do not grow in blue colours as they lack a gene to create true blue pigment - Delphinidin. So the gene for the colour had to be stolen from the Pansy and the gene for the enzyme DFR was taken from the Iris. The enzyme is required to complete the delphinidin synthesis reaction.

Additionally to this the gene for the flower’s own pigment synthesis needed to be switched off. Cue RNAi, one of the most powerful biological tools discovered in the past 25 years. RNAi is as specific as the DNA sequence and can directly target specific genes to act as a switch in production of the protein created from that gene. In this case, an RNAi sequence was created to effectively silence the DFR gene that occurred naturally in the rose, creating the red colour and letting the new DFR gene which varied slightly to work instead.

Below you can see my rainbow rose, bottom left depicts a blue rose created using the same principle with dye, but above that is a photograph of a genetically engineered blue rose.

Truth is it’s not ACTUALLY blue. It’s a sort of mauve/lavender colour, this is because the RNAi didn’t completely block the rose’s natural colour synthesis and instead added a little red tinge to the blue.

But still its bluer than any other roses, and seeing as it grows this way it can answer ‘why yes, I’m a natural blue’ ;) to all those admirers.

Inspiration - My encounter with my own flowery creatures inspired my tentative steps into the floral and colourful realm of workwear;

I don't think any ponies were harmed in the making of this skirt either. Although I can say nothing for my workmates retinas.