Scientists have discovered how to make glow-in-the-dark cats by
inserting the jellyfish genes that create fluorescent proteins into feline eggs.
I needed to check that this was real, and apparently, it is. What’s more, the end goal in these experiments was to fight feline AIDS, creating glow-in-the-dark cats was a side effect. That might be the greatest sentence I write this year.
For those who don’t know much about genetic engineering, this is a really common practice. We have a library of flourescent proteins that don’t really do anything except glow in the dark, and they get chopped into all kinds of things all the time. Reasons for doing this include:
– Checking that a gene insert worked (if you stick a flourescent protein gene to your other gene, you can check for glowing to see that your gene was incorporated correctly)
– Analysing how much a gene is used in the body (for example, let’s say I want to know how much a collagen-producing gene is used; I can stick a flourescent protein gene on the end of that gene, and the glow will be produced with the collagen Then I can look at the glow and see where the gene is being used, and how much)
– Art (some guy commissioned a glowing rabbit for no reason. Seriously.)
– Keeping track of your altered population, if it’s something hard to see with the naked eye (this is the most reliable way to flourescently tag something without killing it)
Here are some more glowing buddies!
(This is the art rabbit)
(mice are very popular for this)
This is incredible. So how recessive is the gene–how long does it last on average down the generations without human interference?
With very rare exceptions, any gene has a 50% inheritence rate in (sexually produced) offspring no matter how often it’s expressed. But if you mean how likely expression is in children, well, it depends where you put it.
Generally, we use these proteins to see what another gene is doing. They’re used because they don’t tend to interfere with anything else (they’re not known to be toxic or to interfere with gene regulation, although there’s always the possibility there’s an as-yet-undiscovered interaction) and they’re easy to see. We want the protein to be made whenever the other target protein is made.
Genetics are complicated, but in very simple terms, a gene has tags on either end of it that tells the transcription equipment where to start reading and where to stop reading. There’s some junk in there that gets cut out, some of which can sometimes be used to make its own protein, and this is why we can do this neat trick – we stick the gene inside the start/stop parts for the other gene, so that whenever the other gene is copied, so is the flourescent protein.
Thus, the offspring will express the flourescent protein at the same rate that they express the target gene protein – the same as their parent. The offspring will have the same chance of inheriting the flourescent protein as they do of the target gene; unless they’re unlinked by a crossover event, they’re inherited together.
