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I'm thinking about the crime and security problem here in S Africa... All I need is ultra violet 'black lights' all around the outside of the house and a few of these dogs ;-) Nic 57/15 On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 12:50 PM, <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > handy for walks after dark but are their "deposits" flourescent ? :) > > Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>: > > > Fluorescent puppy is world's first transgenic dog > > a.. 12:00 23 April 2009 by Ewen Callaway > > b.. For similar stories, visit the GM Organisms and Genetics Topic > Guides > > A cloned beagle named Ruppy - short for Ruby Puppy - is the world's first > > transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent > protein > > that glows red under ultraviolet light. > > > > A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea > > created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red > fluorescent > > gene produced by sea anemones. > > > > Lee and stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that > created > > the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang's work on human > cells > > turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later > > concluded. > > > > This new proof-of-principle experiment should open the door for > transgenic > > dog models of human disease, says team member CheMyong Ko of the > University > > of Kentucky in Lexington. "The next step for us is to generate a true > disease > > model," he says. > > > > However, other researchers who study domestic dogs as stand-ins for human > > disease are less certain that transgenic dogs will become widespread in > > research. > > > > Dogs already serve as models for diseases such as narcolepsy, certain > cancers > > and blindness. And a dog genome sequence has made the animals an even > more > > useful model by quickening the search for disease-causing genes. Most dog > > genetics researchers limit their work to gene scans of DNA collected from > > hundreds of pet owners. > > > > Making a glowing dog > > Lee's team created Ruppy by first infecting dog fibroblast cells with a > virus > > that inserted the fluorescent gene into a cell's nucleus. They then > > transferred the fibroblast's nucleus to another dog's egg cell, with its > > nucleus removed. After a week dividing in a Petri dish, researchers > implanted > > the cloned embryo into a surrogate mother. > > > > Starting with 344 embryos implanted into 20 dogs, Lee's team ended up > with > > seven pregnancies. One fetus died about half way through term, while an > > 11-week-old puppy died of pneumonia after its mother accidentally bit its > > chest. Five dogs are alive, healthy and starting to spawn their own > > fluorescent puppies, Ko says. > > > > Besides the low efficiency of cloning - just 1.7 per cent of embryos came > to > > term - another challenge to creating transgenic dogs is controlling where > in > > the nuclear DNA a foreign gene lands. Lee's team used a retrovirus to > > transfer the fluorescent gene to dog fibroblast cells, but they could not > > control where the virus inserted the gene. > > > > This would seem to prevent researchers from making dog "knockouts" > lacking a > > specific gene or engineering dogs that produce mutant forms of a gene. > These > > knockout procedures are now commonly done in mice and rats, and three > > researchers earned a Nobel prize in 2007 for developing this method, > called > > "gene targeting". > > > > No bright future? > > Ko is working to adapt a procedure used so far in pigs, cows and other > > animals to target genes in cloned dogs. His lab hopes to knock out a > specific > > oestrogen receptor in dogs to understand the hormone's effects on > fertility. > > > > The long lifespan of dogs and their reproductive cycle could make them > more > > relevant to human fertility than mice, he says. "I think these dogs will > be a > > very useful model for our research." > > > > Greg Barsh, a geneticist at Stanford University who studies dogs as > models of > > human disease, says creating a transgenic dog is "an important > > accomplishment", showing that cloning and transgenesis can be applied to > a > > wide range of mammals. > > > > "I do not know of specific situations where the ability to produce > transgenic > > dogs represents an immediate experimental opportunity," Barsh adds. But > > transgenic dogs will give researchers another potential tool to > understand > > disease. > > > > However, Nathan Sutter, a geneticist specialising in dogs at Cornell > > University in Ithaca, New York, says "transgenesis is labourious, > expensive > > and slow". > > > > Add the expense of caring for laboratory-reared dogs and negative public > > perceptions and it could mean few researchers turn to transgenic dogs > like > > Ruppy, he says: "it's not on my horizon as a dog geneticist at all." > > > > Journal reference: genesis (DOI: 10.1002/dvg.20504) > > > > If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in > print or > > online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. > New > > Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of > licensing > > options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright > to. > > > > Rayilyn Brown > > Director AZNPF > > Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation > > [log in to unmask] > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto: > [log in to unmask] > > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > > > > > ---------------------------------------------- > This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto: > [log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn