Glofish - the mechanics of it all

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Callatya, Mar 7, 2004.

  1. Callatya Registered Member

    Messages:
    21
    Plenty of views on this topic i'm sure. I used the search feature and found no threads on it, which suprised me a little... have you guys heard of them?


    How do these little devils work exactly? Coral colour and fiddling with DNA as far as i can figure.

    if you bred a glofish to a normal zebra/leopard danio (Brachydanio rerio/frankei) would you get any glow? perhaps a pinkish hue?

    what is the likelyhood they are sterile?


    Also, how exactly do you patent a fish?? as far as i can tell, you are welcome to breed them, but if you sell them you are in serious trouble. Did i follow that right?
     
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  3. Hercules Rockefeller Beatings will continue until morale improves. Moderator

    Messages:
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    Hi there,

    I study neurobiology using zebrafish, so yes I have heard of Glofish! The scientists behind the Glofish are trying to genetically engineer zebrafish such that they can be used to detect water pollution. They are trying to make zebrafish whose embryos produce fluorescent proteins in the presence of certain pollutants, such as PCBs. Zebrafish embryos are small, transparent and develop externally, so it is very easy to monitor them for any fluorescence.

    Now, Glofish are constitutively (ie. constantly) florescent throughout their lifetime. So my guess is that the scientists made the Glofish as an initial test case to gauge the success of their techniques by designing the Glofish to have ubiquitous constitutive expression of different fluorescent proteins. Once they were satisfied with the results, they went on to making their fish that are fluorescent only in the presence of pollutants. As a money-making spin-off (and in an attempt to generate funds for their ongoing research) they chose the best-looking Glofish to sell commercially.

    <I>>>>How do these little devils work exactly? Coral colour and fiddling with DNA as far as i can figure.</I>

    Yes, they have taken a gene from coral that codes for a fluorescent protein and inserted the gene into the DNA of zebrafish embryos. The zebrafish cells make the fluorescent protein from the coral gene. When the embryos grow to sexual mature adults, they can pass on the gene to their offspring. I am not sure if the fluorescent gene is expressed in every cell of the fish or only in the skin. The Glofish website (<a href="http://www.glofish.com/">http://www.glofish.com/</a>) includes no technical information at all as to how they made the fish.

    <img src="http://www.glofish.com/images/5.jpg">

    <I>>>>if you bred a glofish to a normal zebra/leopard danio (Brachydanio rerio/frankei) would you get any glow? perhaps a pinkish hue? what is the likelyhood they are sterile?</I>

    The Glofish website says that the Glofish have breeding characteristics and breeding rates equivalent to normal zebrafish, so this statement seems to imply that they are fertile. I imagine that Glofish are homozygous for the transgene, so if you bred them to normal zebrafish than all the progeny would also be fluorescent, but not as strongly as the parental Glofish.

    <I>>>>Also, how exactly do you patent a fish?? as far as i can tell, you are welcome to breed them, but if you sell them you are in serious trouble. Did i follow that right?</I>

    Patent laws are not my strong suit, but I believe you are correct.


    (PS. I see you’re in Sydney – your use of ‘u’ in ‘colour’ gave it away! I’m an ex-pat Melbournite working in the USA.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    )

    (PPS. The taxonomic name of zebrafish was changed a few years ago. Their genus is now <I>Danio</I> - the "Brachy" has been dropped.)
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2004
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  5. Callatya Registered Member

    Messages:
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    Really? straight out Danio now? urg.
    you could make a full time job out of chasing up the new taxonomic names for fish! I take it frankei actually never was a separate species? we have that sorted now? *lol*

    Thanks for helping me with that, i was getting all manner of junk from the 'hobbyist' sites that was just utter twoddle. Thanks especially for clearing up their original purpose and why they constantly flouresce (sp?) as that was particularly puzzling.

    I wonder how long i will have to wait for AQIS to let these little terrors in so i can have a bit of a hands-on?
     
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