Why are certain cotton plants called Bt- cotton plants?
Answers
Answer:
Pest resistant genetically engineered cotton plants.
Explanation:
Bt is a species of bacteria called Bacillus thuringenisis.
They have cry proteins that secrete toxins.
They secrete toxins that are inactivated in the microbes but when these microbes are consumed by insects, the toxic proteins get activated due to alkalinity of the insect gut.
One of the greatest problems, in cotton cultivation,is pest attack.
Use of pesticides as you know is harmful, since it kills non target useful insects too.
To overcome this problem, cry genes encoding the toxins are isolated from Bt bacteria and using suitable vectors are introduced into the cotton plants.
Such genes are insect specific.
Eg:Cry1Ac kills cotton bollworms only.
These cotton plants are refered as Bt cotton.
Hope it helps you!!!!
Answer:
certain cotton plants are called Bt cotton because specific Bt toxin genes were isolated from Bacillus thuringiensis and incorporated into these cotton plants