《经济学家》读译参考：蓝玫瑰红紫罗兰－转基因技术让花儿色香俱全(1)

Roses are blue, violets are red
　　玫瑰是蓝色的，紫罗兰是红色的 （陈继龙 编译）

　　Feb 8th 2007
　　From The Economist print edition

　　If you don't like GM food, try flowers instead
　　要是不喜欢转基因食品，试试转基因花

　　BEAUTIFUL flowers—like beautiful women—can separate the most sensible of men from their money. Those men invest in the reproductive organs of plants such as roses to signal, albeit coyly, analogous intentions of their own.

　　美丽的花朵就像美女一样，会让极为感性的男人倾其所有。那些男人用买来的玫瑰（或者其它）花蕊（花的“生殖器官”），去表白自己希望共结连理的心愿——虽然有点害羞。

　　The result is a cut-flower industry in which roses alone are worth $10 billion a year. But that is peanuts compared with what happened in the past. In 17th century Holland, tulips （the fashionable flower du jour） grew so expensive that people exchanged them for houses. One bulb of the most sought-after variety, the flaming red-striped Semper Augustus, sold for twice the yearly income of a rich merchant.

　　切花（cut-flower）产业就这样形成了，每年仅玫瑰一种花即可创造100亿美元的价值，不过相比从前这只能算是蝇头小利。在17世纪的荷兰，风行一时的郁金香身价倍增，以至于人们不惜变卖房产来换取郁金香。带有火红条纹的“永远的奥古斯都”（Semper Augustus）是欢迎的一种，它的一块球茎售价相当于一个富商年收入的两倍。

　　For modern flower growers, the equivalentof the Semper Augustus is the blue rose, which horticulturalists have longed for since the Victorian period. Any blue rose sent on St Valentine's day this year will have been dyed. But if Yoshi Tanaka, a researcher at Suntory, a Japanese drinks company, has his way, that will soon change. Dr Tanaka is currently overseeing the first field trials of a blue rose developed by Suntory's subsidiary, Florigene. If the trials are successful, a dozen blue roses—even if they do look slightly mauve[1] —could, by 2010, be what separates an unsuccessful suitor from Prince Charming.

　　在现代花卉栽培者看来，堪与“永远的奥古斯都”相提并论的唯有蓝色玫瑰。自维多利亚时代以来，园艺家就一直渴望培育出这种玫瑰。今年情人节送出的所有蓝色玫瑰还将是染成的，但如果日本三得利（Suntory）饮品公司专家田中良（Yoshi Tanaka）能够如愿以偿，情况就会很快得到改变。三得利的子公司Florigene培育的一种蓝色玫瑰已经开始了首次野外栽培试验，田中博士目前正在对试验进行密切观察。一旦试验成功，那么到2010年的时候，12朵蓝色玫瑰——即使稍带紫色——能够让求婚的小伙子“抱得美人归”。

　　Flaming tulips. Blue roses. What Dutch growers of old and Dr Tanaka's employers both grasped is that rarity, and hence economic value, can be created by genetic manipulation.

　　火红的郁金香，蓝色的玫瑰。荷兰老一代花卉栽培者和田中博士的老板都明白，物以稀为贵，而“稀”则可来自基因调控。

　　The stripes of the Semper Augustus were caused by the genes of a virus. Not knowing that an infection was involved, the Dutch growers were puzzled why the Semper Augustus would not breed true. The genetics of blue roses, too, have turned out to be more complicated than expected. The relevant genes cannot easily be pasted into rose DNA because the metabolic pathway for creating blue pigment in a rose consists of more chemical steps than it does in other types of flower. （Florigene has sold bluish genetically modified carnations since 1998.） Success, then, has been a matter of pinning down the genes that allow those extra steps to happen, and then transplanting them to their new host.

　　“永远的奥古斯都”上的条纹是由一种病毒基因造成的。荷兰的花卉栽培者过去并不知道这与病毒感染有关，所以就搞不懂为什么“永远的奥古斯都”不易培育。蓝色玫瑰的基因原理也比预想的更为复杂。由于在玫瑰中合成蓝色素的代谢过程所涉及的化学反应步骤较其他品种的花多，因此各种相关基因不易插入玫瑰DNA.（从1998年开始Florigene的经基因修饰而成的蓝色康乃馨就已上市。）故而成功的关键就在于，必须抑制那些引发干扰反应的基因，然后再把它们移入新的宿主。