Question

Which of the following was the first transgenic plant?
A) Potato
B) Tomato
C) Tobacco
D) Maize

Answer 1

Hint:The word “transgenic” relates to denoting an organism that has genetic material into which DNA from a different unrelated organism has been artificially introduced.

Complete answer:
1) Transgenic plants are plants that have had their genomes modified through genetic engineering techniques either by the addition of a foreign gene or removal of a certain detrimental gene. A foreign gene inserted into a plant can be of a different species or even kingdom. The main purpose in the production of transgenic plants is to produce crops, which have ideal traits, quality, and high yield. Besides being beneficial to the agriculture sector, the plants are found to be able to act as the factory for pharmaceutical protein production.
2) The first transgenic plant was developed through the insertion of nptII bacterial antibiotic resistance gene into tobacco, the plant expressed antibiotic resistance, it was performed way back in 1982.

Additional Information:Since the invention of transgenic plants there has been a rapid development in plant molecular biology and genetic engineering technology.A lot of variety of transgenic plants with important productive agronomic traits such as pest resistance and drought tolerance have been developed, ranging from dicots to monocots. Genetic engineering of staple crops has become an effective solution in tackling the problem of malnutrition. A variety of crops had been successfully modified for better yield as well as for higher nutritional value. Biofortification is a technique used to increase the nutritional value of crops, for example, golden rice is a variety of Oryza sativa which is produced to biosynthesize beta-carotene through genetic modification.

Thus, the correct answer is option C (Tobacco).

Note:To develop a transgenic plant, methods such as vector insertion, transformation methods, transgene integration, and inheritance of transgene are used.