How does the herbicide Roundup work?
Roundup (a trade name used by Monsanto) and other herbicides based on glyphosphate (the generic name) are probably the most commonly applied weed killers in use today. These herbicides are used by everyone from farmers to foresters to gardeners to biologists trying to control invasive exotic plants. Glyphosphate-based herbicides all work on the same biochemical principle — they inhibit a specific enzyme that plants need in order to grow. The specific enzyme is called EPSP synthase . Without that enzyme, plants are unable to produce other proteins essential to growth, so they yellow and die over the course of several days or weeks. A majority of plants use this same enzyme, so almost all plants succumb to Roundup. If you have read the HowStuffWorks article How Cells Work, you know a good bit about DNA and how it produces enzymes. I
