An enzyme that (via catalysis) chemically breaks down glyphosate (i.e., the active ingredient in some herbicides). Glyphosate oxidase is produced in nature by acclimated microorganisms. In 1988, Michael Heitkamp discovered a strain of Pseudomonas bacteria which possessed a gene (GO) that caused those particular Pseudomonas bacteria to produce unusually large amounts of glyphosate oxidase. That GO gene can be incorporated into a variety of crop plants (e.g., soybean, cotton, etc.) in order to enable those plants to survive post-emergence applications of glyphosate-containing herbicide. Additionally, a plant can be genetically engineered to survive postemergence applications of glyphosate-containing herbicide via insertion of gene (cassette) for plant production of the enzyme CP4 EPSPS.