Recently, a new mechanism to detoxify glyphosate in planta, deactivation by acetylation, was developed (Castle et al., 2004). The enzyme, glyphosate acetyltransferase (GAT), converts glyphosate into the non-toxic molecule acetylglyphosate, before glyphosate can reach and inhibit the the EPSPS enzyme. The gat gene was derived from a naturally occurring soil bacterium (Bacillus licheniformis). Researchers used a technology, known as gene shuffling, to optimize both the enzyme’s acetylation efficiency and its specificity before incorporating the gene into plants (Castle et al., 2004; Siehl et al., 2005).
![Global [change]](/globalassets/v3/images/en_US/topNav_Mn_count.gif)
