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Glow in the dark pigs

  • Thread starter Gawd_oOo
  • Start date
But where do I get the green eggs???

- Mike
 
The usefulness of this is lost on me. Unless you want to go look for pigs in the dark...
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (m0bius @ Jan. 13 2006,6:03)]But where do I get the green eggs???

- Mike
Just take some eggs, a plastic bag, a bit of water, and a nice warm sidewalk, and there ya have it.
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-Ben
 
Since most of the world does not have an intimate knowledge of genetics then the why is usually lost on the masses and because the morons in pop media also lack that knowledge they never bother to offer an explanation as to why it is important. All the the media does is contribute to the hype and make all scientists out to be Frankeinsteinian.

The GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) pigs are important for developmental studies. Since all the cells in their bodies can be stimulated to fluoresce under certain wavelengths the developmental processes of tissue growth and change can be studied in detail here-to-fore unavailable. It also has aplications in tissue cloning research and stem cell research, something that tends to get glossed over due to the political/moral claptrap sure to arise.
 
Glow in the dark bacon for the ninja on the move
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I know they did that with mice, we studied it back in Bio. Mice with phosphorous green fur that glows in the dark... But I've never heard of the similar done with pigs... kinda cool really
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Maybe they will soon make 3 inch tall persons who glow in the dark
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fairies!!! muhahahaha!!!!
 
So... were the pigs genetically engineered so that they would fluoresce? How does one make something fluoresce that doesn't normally? Can you make a human fluoresce?

I have fluorescent minerals...they are awsome.
 
Maybe they can do the same thing with cp. Glow in the dark cp would be really neat. Don't let jimscott see this topic, or he will start experimenting on his plants trying to make them glow in the dark.
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  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] (PlantAKiss @ Jan. 17 2006,1:50)]So... were the pigs genetically engineered so that they would fluoresce? How does one make something fluoresce that doesn't normally? Can you make a human fluoresce?

I have fluorescent minerals...they are awsome.
PAK, the article said they inject jelly fish DNA into pig embroys. And if it works on pigs it will most likely work on humans, the DNA of both is fairly similar.

There are pigs, in england if I remember correctly, that have 100% human blood pumping through them. Also I think they use pigs to try and make human livers, think it was livers.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Maybe they can do the same thing with cp. Glow in the dark cp would be really neat. Don't let jimscott see this topic, or he will start experimenting on his plants trying to make them glow in the dark.
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Yeah, that would help him find them when they float down stream, a nice canoe trip at night..
 
  • #11
PAK, the GFP protein is one of the most ubiquitously used proteins in biology and it is insertable into pretty much any organism. So, yes we could make a human that would fluoresce except that human experimentation like that is rather immoral (and in most countries banned.) No self-respecting scientist would ever perform this type of experiment on another human being.

The process is rather simple. An embryo (of any animal) is injected with the GFP gene in a carrier vector. Embryos that pick up the vector have a marker that allows them to be selected for and those embryos are then grown to maturity. Since the vector only inserts randomly in to some cells not all the cells in these adult animals will have the gene. However, statistically some of the sperm/eggs will have the gene and so when you breed out you have the chance of getting an embryo that has the GFP gene in every cell.

Does all that make sense or did I go into too much techno-babble (a hazard of the profession.)

I don't know why the pigs are making front page news, years ago it was done with fish (which then entered the market as a novelty item sparking a HUGE debate) and it was also done in a monkeya few years back here in the U.S.
 
  • #12
I must admit it is still cool that there are now glow in the dark pigs in the world. What's next, a glow in the dark cow!
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  • #13
Thanks Travis. No, your explanation wasn't too techie.
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So. What happens if two "GINTD" pigs breed? Will the trait for that be passed on to the piglets? What happens if one "GINTD" pig breeds with a regular pig? Do you get a mix of "GINTD" and regular piglets? And...what actually glows?? The skin?? Hair? Everything?

I know when you breed a seal-point siamese and a blue-point siamese you can have seal, blue or lilac-point kittens. You get a mix...not necessarily all lilac points.
 
  • #14
2 GFP pigs will sire all GFP offspring. 1 GFP pig and one normal pig will either give rise to 50% GFP offspring and 50% normal offspring or 100% carrier offspring depending on the heritability trait (i.e. whether you need 1 copy of the gene for GFP fluorescence or 2 copies)

As for what glows, since every cell has the gene then every cell produces the protein so pretty much everything glows on them. However, it is not always visable. I know on the monkey, due to his skin pigmentation, only his eyes, the tips of his hair and nailbeds would fluoresce.
 
  • #15
About glowing CP's: It is quite possible as a similar experiment was first done on plants years ago. I think it was with a tobacco plant, though. But it could easily be done on something else!

Oh yeah, I made a glow-in-the-dark venus flytrap once! Just fed it a firefly and the trap glowed for an hour or more! Then it died... luminol is toxic to most plants, I think.

-D. Lybrand
 
  • #16
D is correct it was done with tobacco. Also with Arabidopsis and some kind of kelp I think.

That is interesting about the firefly trap dying, I was not aware that luciferase was toxic. Glad I never ate any fireflys when I was younger.
 
  • #17
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Pyro @ Jan. 18 2006,12:39)]2 GFP pigs will sire all GFP offspring. 1 GFP pig and one normal pig will either give rise to 50% GFP offspring and 50% normal offspring or 100% carrier offspring depending on the heritability trait (i.e. whether you need 1 copy of the gene for GFP fluorescence or 2 copies)

As for what glows, since every cell has the gene then every cell produces the protein so pretty much everything glows on them. However, it is not always visable. I know on the monkey, due to his skin pigmentation, only his eyes, the tips of his hair and nailbeds would fluoresce.
It would have to be 50/50 would it? If there was a clutch of 8 piglets, couldn't you possibly get any combination if only one copy of the GFP gene is needed? like 1 GFP pig and 9 normal, or 2 GFP and 8 normal, etc.

Also if 2 GFP pigs gave way to offspring isn't there the chance that they pass on the other none GFP gene and give birth to normal non GFP pig(s)?
 
  • #18
lol! Yeah, it eventually killed the whole plant because some of the chemical (is it luciferase that is found in fireflies?) was absorbed with the insect. That was actually the only venus flytrap I ever tried to grow!

-D. Lybrand
 
  • #19
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Gawd_oOo @ Jan. 18 2006,2:47)]It would have to be 50/50 would it? If there was a clutch of 8 piglets, couldn't you possibly get any combination if only one copy of the GFP gene is needed? like 1 GFP pig and 9 normal, or 2 GFP and 8 normal, etc.
Gawd,

Actually I am wrong. If the trait is dominant then a GFP (homozygous) x non-GFP will give 100% (heterozygous) GFP offspring. If the trait is recessive then a GFP (homozygous) x non-GFP will give 0% GFP offspring.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Also if 2 GFP pigs gave way to offspring isn't there the chance that they pass on the other none GFP gene and give birth to normal non GFP pig(s)?

Not really. Think about the breeding, to get the GFP pig you crossed mosaic siblings and got a GFP sperm fertilizing a GFP egg. Therefore the offspring are homozygous for GFP. Subsiquentially, any two GFP pigs bred together will produce GFP pigs. So unless you had a spontaneous mutation that made one/both sets of sex cells heterozygous then you should not expect non-GFP pigs from first generation GFP parents.

However, for both situations, depending on heritability, successive generations may exhibit a different offspring profile.
 
  • #20
Are you a geneticist by trade Pyro?
 
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