Does DNA get taken up by tissue cells?
The answer is yes, and this has been known since the mid 1990s. GM DNA and viral DNA fed to mice ended up in cells of several tissues, and when fed to pregnant mice, the DNA was able to cross the placenta and enter the cells of the fetus and the newborn. These results were confirmed in 2001, when soya DNA, too, was found taken into the tissue cells of a few animals. In general, abundant chloroplast sequences have been detected in the tissues of pigs and chickens but not single-gene DNA nor GM DNA. But rare events are most likely to go undetected, on account of the limitations of the PCR technique. Recently, spontaneous transgenesisthe process of spontaneous uptake of foreign DNA resulting in gene expressionhas been rediscovered by a team of researchers looking for new possibilities in gene therapy. They documented the phenomenon in several human B lymphocyte cell lines as well as peripheral blood B lymphocytes. The transgene in a plasmid was readily taken up and was found in many cell
