{"id":23947,"date":"2015-09-29T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T14:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=23947"},"modified":"2015-09-29T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T14:33:23","slug":"honey-genetically-enhanced-mold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/honey-genetically-enhanced-mold\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey, I Genetically Enhanced the Mold!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue cheese get\u2019s some pretty passionate supporters and some pretty passionate haters, but I\u2019d never heard of anyone who passionately studied<\/em> blue cheese.<\/p>\n

Evolutionary biologist Ricardo C. Rodr\u00edguez de la Vega, however, has made the mold on cheese his area of expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we\u2019re traveling internationally for a conference or something, we go specifically to the local cheese shop and say, \u2018Give me the wildest blue cheese you have,\u2019\u201d Rodr\u00edguez de la Vega told The New York Times<\/a><\/cite>. And earlier this week, the scientist\u2019s attention to wild blue cheese led to a pretty shocking discovery.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rodr\u00edguez de la Vega has been conducting a study that revolves around a strand of mold called penicillium. Two kinds of this strand are commonly used in cheesemaking: Penicillium roqueforti<\/em>, which is combined with fermenting curds to form blue cheese, and Penicillium camemberti<\/em>, which—once sprayed on the curds—constructs a protective layer (a.k.a. the rind) around our favorite soft cheeses. These types of mold help keep the cheese safe from harmful strands of fungi and bacteria.<\/p>\n

Since the strain of mold determines rather it will protect or destroy the cheese, the scientific identification of various mold species in the early twentieth century was extremely beneficial to cheesemakers. They were then able to choose the laboratory-born mold that best fit their cheeses. What they didn\u2019t know, however, was that the mold would respond the way all species aim to: going into survival-of-the-fittest mode and adapting to their environment. Which, in this case, meant swapping DNA with other species of mold.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rodr\u00edguez de la Vega and his colleagues performed their study by gathering 10 species of penicillium. Six species are found on milk; the other four have no connection to cheese. In studying their genetic makeup, the scientists found pieces of DNA that didn\u2019t seem to match the rest of the genetic structure. \u201cThese pieces of DNA weren\u2019t present in the closest relatives of each mold species, but they were found in identical form in distantly related species,\u201d NYT\u2019s Carl Zimmer reports. With this swap, known as horizontal gene transfer, the mold can more easily survive on milk, but it loses the ability to grow how they would in the wild. Each mold the scientists researched had five percent of their genome made of DNA from another species.<\/p>\n

These changes have taken place in \u201csuch a short time scale in evolution that it\u2019s quite amazing,\u201d says evolutionary biologist and co-author of the study Antoine Branca.<\/p>\n

While this discovery can help cheesemakers further perfect mold use in their production, Tatiana Giraud, another study co-author, says it\u2019s important to understand the potential dangers. The mold that spoils cheese can take on the enhanced genes of the safety mold and become more resistant, adding another layer to the country\u2019s ongoing debate about the validity and safety of GMOs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Study shows how cheesemakers may be unintentionally responsible for changing the genetic makeup of cheese mold<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":21352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[818],"class_list":["post-23947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-bites"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHoney, I Genetically Enhanced the Mold! - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/honey-genetically-enhanced-mold\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Honey, I Genetically Enhanced the Mold!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Study shows how cheesemakers may be unintentionally responsible for changing the genetic makeup of cheese mold\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/honey-genetically-enhanced-mold\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-29T14:33:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/AsherBlue_Southern-Charmer_ftr.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"368\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarah Cummings\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarah Cummings\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/honey-genetically-enhanced-mold\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/honey-genetically-enhanced-mold\/\",\"name\":\"Honey, I Genetically Enhanced the Mold! 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