Roses do come in a variety of beautiful colors but definitely not in blue, no matter how hard gardeners have attempted to breed the color into reality for centuries. Now it seems like we might have the option to bypass mother nature and create the elusive blue rose with the help of biotechnology.
According to a report that appeared in ACS Synthetic Biology, researchers from the Tianjin University and the Chinese Academy of Science found a way to express pigment-producing enzymes from bacteria in the petals of a white rose, which resulted in a blue tint.
The engineered bacteria was injected into the petal of a white rose and caused a blue hue to spread around from the injection point.
Unfortunately, the rose is not commercially ready in the slightest – the color does not last very long, it’s spotty and it also doesn’t infuse throughout the petal.
If you were already planning to impress your date with an armful of blue roses though, I have some bad news: the scientists want the roses to be engineered to produce the enzymes themselves, without requiring any injections in order to achieve the color and it looks like that might take just a while longer.
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