Cats that glow in the dark

[Steve9347]

... we sure can make a cat glow in the dark.

 

South Koreans clone cats that glow in the dark. Yes. They did it.

 

[BigEdWalsh]

They're really cute except when they're glowing in the dark. Kinda scary looking. Just the same, I'd like one.

[JoshPR]

[FlaSoxxJim]

That press snippet is incredibly misinformed. The scientists didn't clone the cats by manipulating the RFP gene – they cloned a transgenic cat that had the RFP gene inserted into it, and the fact that the offspring glowed is evidence that they are derived from the transgenic parent.

 

RFP (red fluorescent prrotein), GFP (green fluorescent protein, glowing fluorescent protein), and a couple of others – apart from the Weird Science novelty of creating glowing mice, rabbits, cats, and 'Frankenfish' that you can buy at Wal-Mart for a couple dollars – are proving to be really powerful biotech tools. The genes coding for the proteins were originally isolated from a jellyfish and a coral, and I give a pretty good overview of them here on a Marine Biotechnology website I developed with funding from Sea Grant. Click on the "Cnidarians" link to open a cascading page with all the information.

 

Here's a rundown of some of the coolest 'serious' uses of the fluorescent proteins:

 

One important application of these glowing protein gens is gene is as 'reporter genes.' Incorporated into a vector along with another gene that is the one researchers are actually interested in, the vector can be inserted into a new host and incorporation success can be quickly assessed by visually testing for GFP.

 

There is also a San Diego biotech company that has developed more than 100 different glowing mouse lines that can be used to visualize tumor expression, growth, and metastasis. Human tumor tissues and cancerous cell lines that have had GFP/RFP inserted into them are surgically grafted into the mice and the expression and progression of the cancer can be visually assessed from the fluorescence, so the mice don't need to be sacrificed to be assayed.

 

One of the coolest applications is using transgenic zebrafish that have fluorescent proteins incorporated into them as pollution indicators. Here, the GFP gene has been associated with a promoter gene that regulates when GFP is to be synthesized. A research group out of Singapore is working to identify promoters that switch on GFP production in the presence of specific environmental contaminants like estrogen and heavy metals. Basically the zebrafish will light up when the encounter specific pollutants, so this may become an extremely powerful indicator organism. The group is working on a new Frankenfish (I love that term) with 5 different fluorescence producing genes that will fluoresce different colors in response to the presence of different environmental pollutants.

 

Wicked cool stuff.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2007 by FlaSoxxJim

[GoSox05]

Cats are evil enough, let alone glowing ones. Watch your soul.

[RockRaines]

Cats are evil enough, let alone glowing ones. Watch your soul.

Yeah, creepy. They try to kill you in your sleep.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Yeah, creepy. They try to kill you in your sleep.

 

But now you can see them coming in the dark.