<As recall, some years ago the people creating genetically modified crops
used antibiotic resistant 'marker' genes to enable it easily to be tested
whether the intended gene had also been transferred to the plants>

I just curious how they managed to use antibiotic resistant genes to to
quickly identify if a plant had picked up a gene.  In GM bacteria they do
this then kill off all the extra unmodified bacteria using that antibiotic
so only the modified ones survive generally.  How the heck would they do
that with crops?  If they were sequencing for the gene they could just look
for the one transferred rather than adding another.  Am I missing something
here?  That simply doesn't make sense to me, but i'm not any form of
molecular biologist either.  Also epigenetics is the modification of
expression of existing genes no?  That would mean they simply turned on or
off (in this case on I guess) an existing resistance gene ya?

Jeremy
West Michigan

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