Bioluminescent Goldfish?

[Vincent]

Here is my idea so far:
I want to try to transplant the gene for bioluminescence into
common goldfish. Possible sources of this gene could be fungi, algae,
or other fish species. I think the fish genes would be the best bet,
but i could be mistaken.
My main goal with this is to have the goldfish signal when they are
stressed. When relaxed, they could glow a soft blue color like the
fungi, which seems to be a passive reaction (no effort on the part of
the organism). When stressed, they would produce a brighter green
color, maybe flashing like a firefly.

I'm not sure yet how much of this is actually feasible. My biggest
doubt it the change in color/brightness, because that seems to depend
as much on instinct as it does on genetics... But again, I might be
wrong. Only time will tell.

I'll be doing research into this over the coming weeks. Anyone with
information on this is welcome to share :D

-Vincent

[Bacter]

I think the first thing will be to get a tighter definition for stressed. Are you looking for the release of a certain chemical? The fish version of adrenaline or somthing?

[Bacter]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11324821

Here's an idea

[Vincent]

Wow, that actually helps a lot...
Yes, I was thinking short-term stress, like being in confined quarters
or being chased by a predator.
Could there be a way to link the release of photoproteins (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoprotein ) to production of this
HLP-1 protein?

[kingjacob]

It sounds like you are wanting to build a bistable switch with PoPs as the input.

The denmark igem team two years back built something similiar however keep in mind

they used two separate inputs where as you would be using PoPs.

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[Vincent]

Could it be possible to carry new genes into a living fish using a
viral medium? Like exposing fish fry to a waterborne virus. Would the
new genes take?

[Bacter]

According to

http://www.glofish.com/faq.asp

this, it looks like the thing to do is add the gene to eggs.

[Cathal Garvey]

Big question!

Simply put, the main factor in engineering animals is transformation efficiency. In other words, if your efficiency is only 30% (pretty good!), then you'll only transform a third of the organism.

On top of that, viruses won't be able to infect more than a few types of cell any way: epithelial, say, or liver tissue. So now you've only got 30% of one organ.

That's why animal transformation is instead done either at the gamete or embryo stage. So, you engineer the spermatogenesis stem cells and then breed with the transformed male, or you make/collect loads of embryos and transform them.

Thing is, there aren't any natural viruses that target embryo stem cells. Normally you do microinjection, which is pretty hard to do diy without money for special equipment. You could try chemical transformation though, I think. Probably the reason it's not normally done is that messing with an embryo membrane could interrupt the subcellular patterning that leads to the final body shape.

With fish, you have a nice opportunity at spawning time to catch some freshly fertilised single cell embryos. You might be able to find a protocol using DIYable reagents in the zebrafish-genetics category of research, which would probably work for goldfish.

Do be kind to them though, no dissecting live fish for testicular tissue please. Not only do fish have a full complement of pain receptors, they may be protected from unlicensed scientific research in your country.

[Vincent]

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely look into zebrafish for more
info.

And no worries. I'm a part-time volunteer for animal rights in my
country :) The last thing I want to do is go around dissecting live
animals...

> On 7 Sep 2011 16:01, "Vincent" <vinhi...@gmail.com> wrote:> Could it be possible to carry new genes into a living fish using a

[Vincent]

I've seen glofish in petshops here. It's close to what I want to do,
except I want my goldfish to be naturally luminous, not just when
exposed to UV light...
I was hoping for something more along the lines of a firefly, or the
microorganisms that create the glowing ocean waves in certain parts of
the world.

[Vincent]

I've decided I'll try this with zebrafish first, because they are
easier to breed and seem to be a preferred species to work with.
Also, I think before I try fish, I should first test this with
something simpler. Probably bacteria or algae. Which species are good
candidates, and where can I find information on how to single out a
particular bacteria species in a sample?

[Erik Garrison]

Right!  I believe that's how the Silver lab at Wyss managed to create zebrafish/cyanobacteria symbionts.  video:http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42529855001?bctid=82893472001

[EJ]

Bear in mind that bioluminescence is not a single gene, but a bunch of them. The pVIB plasmid, which we use for bacteria transformation to get chemiluminescent bacteria, is over 10kb! You need the genes to make luciferin, the substrate, and the gene for luciferase, the enzyme. You could just use the luciferase gene but you would have to figure out a way to get luciferin into the fish- you can't just add it to the Petri dish as in a bacterial experiment. And it's not cheap.

[Cathal Garvey]

I don't think you can even buy bacterial luciferin that easily.. the
usual "Luciferin" is firefly luciferin, a very different molecule.

You could probably supply tetradecanol (which is probably available as a
food additive) and trim your operon only to the bits needed to convert
it to tetradecanal.

I'm told by Harsh that you can use acetaldehyde as well, provided that
you add a long-chain molecule that can "fill the gap" in the active site
of luciferase to allow the enzyme to act upon acetaldehyde. But, it's
probably not worth the money/base pairs saved in removing the
tetradecanal (luciferin) synthase genes, because you'd have to keep
adding the acetaldehyde; the luciferin regeneration system that keeps
bioluminescence going in wild bacteria won't work for acetaldehyde.

Sometimes, the awesome things just require lots of DNA to work.
Bioluminescence is a make-and-break chemical cycle; you need enzymes for
both parts of the equation, and it adds up!

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[Yuriy Fazylov]

is this what you meant? http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018877

[SC]

I'd be concerned that people would mistreat the fish just to see it change color. 

Check youtube for "fainting goats" to see people acting like jerks.

[Nathan McCorkle]

The video I just watched said this 'tic' can be induced even by the
excitement of getting fed. It is pretty interesting to see such a
large organism that seems like it would be totally wiped out in the
wild.

And the concern exists already with people fighting chickens, dogs,
and those Betta fish... so this doesn't seem like it would encourage
that sort of mental pattern. If you are concerned with such, we need
to think of human-centric solutions (idk, embryo genetic testing for
aggression genes or something, or better education for the young and
more strict laws for dealing with non-infant offenders).

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[Cathal (Phone)]

Increased penality doesn't greatly affect offence rate. Reducing poverty and heavy metal pollution goes much further toward preventing violence and aggression.

Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.