Genetically engineered glow in the dark fish...

[WifesaysImnuts]

My wife and I were watching a show on animal planet last night about genetic engineering of animals. One of the segments of the show was about a new fish that is on sale in Japan right now. I forget the species name, but it was a freshwater fish that they had used some jellyfish DNA in to make it glow in the dark. They literally looked like a swimming glow stick.

Apparently these fish are on sale at most Japanese pet stores and are kind of a hot ticket item right now. All specimens are sterilized before being sold so that careless owners who dump their fishes into rivers don't compromise local populations.

To be honest, I don't know what I think of this. I think it's safe to assume that if they've created a glow in the dark freshwater fish, a saltwater one isn't far behind.

Would you buy a genetically engineered fish for your reef tank? Especially considering that the engineering wasn't to make a healthier fish, just a more garish one?

[Flipturn88]

Specimens are sterilized? I wonder what they mean by that...It's ironic; they must know it cannot be good for the fish if they fear contamination of local populations.

Once again, another sad, cruel action done my man in hopes to make more money.

[firefighter1_emt_cop]

the glow in the dark Danio's are Sterile because the company wants to make the money off of them. If they werent then anyone could breed them and pass on the trait, which would mean they would lose money.

[Flipturn88]

Oh I see; they don't want wild ones to start glowing as well...that would be scary to look in the river and see glowing fish.

[Paul B]

I don't know exactly how I feel about it either but it is probably not as bad as it sounds. Basically all the produce and meat in the USA is genetically modified for the market. There is really only one kind of cow and one type of corn. All the rest was changed either for profit or disease resistance. These fish (I saw the show) are "made" for the tropical fish market. Tropical fish really serve no purpose other than to entertain and educate. So I guess if you like your fish to glow in the dark so be it. Maybe your dog can glow so you can find it in the dark.

[Flipturn88]

But doesn't it hurt the fish? I can't imagine that chemicals from a jelly that make you glow are very good for a fish :)

[greenbean36191]

These fish (I saw the show) are "made" for the tropical fish market. Tropical fish really serve no purpose other than to entertain and educate.

Wrong! Actually these fish have been around for years. They were developed to monitor chemicals in the water. The gene was normally inactive, but certain chemicals would cause the fish to light up and warn the scientists of the chemical's presence.

Once again, another sad, cruel action done my man in hopes to make more money.

Well originally they weren't created just to make money, but that is the only real reason to sell them to aquarists.

FWIW I read around Christmas time that they were available in the US.

[Paul B]

Flipturn88, I don't know if it hurts the fish but as I was watching the show I was probably eating fish which probably also hurts the fish.
Greenbean36191. The fish were designed to monitor chemicals in the sea but now they are being marketed for hobbiests, in other words "us". I am sure there is a market for glow fish as there is for those fresh water fish that they inject dye into. As I said, I do not want one but we hobbiests kill many millions of fish and corals that were very happy in the sea. I do not eat red meat so I guess I saved a few cows and I killed a few fish. It is what it is.

[Flipturn88]

However, PaulB, eating fish for food is different in my mind than harming (potentially) a fish for the sake of money. The fish may have helped them monitor chemicals, but now their use is expanding to the point that the masses in Japan are able to purchase them. That would certainly have an impact on the number of fish injected with these chemicals. Besides, eating a fish involves a quick death, where as having chemicals circulating through a body for weeks, months, etc isn't.

Just my opinion

[RancherAZ]

Ok im going to say my 2 cents here..............THat is just WRONG... Fish or any living being should not be a specimin of experiments of such. I ask would you like to be injected with something that makes you glow in the dark? LOL i would think not.
From what i'v learned and experienced from Fishkeeping Fresh and saltwater is that the NATURAL beauty of the fish is what makes this hobby one of the most rewarding aspects.
We as fish keepers when looking for a fish look for the most natural fish we can find the whole object to fishkeeping is to create the same enviroment that they have been captive from so we have Healthy happy fish and Tanks.
Its very sad when i walk into an LFS and see these poor creatures swimming about glowing all different colors. It is Just wrong.
I hang out on another forum named Tropical resources (www.tropicalresources.net).
There here in Arizona as I am and on that site you can read a lot about this. the owner and mods do a lot of research on this subject and are also so very discouraged by this.
Keep the waters natural.

Ok i said my peace

Thanx
RAZ

[scchase]

These fish are not injected with anything to make them glow they are gentically modified in the egg with genetic material from jellyfish the ones that we see for sale are the offspring of these original fish that carry the genes with reproduction.
In the wild these fish would stand about as a much of a chance of surviving the day as an icecream cone at a playground filled with kids.
Now there are some fish that are injected with dyes and this is completly wrong IMHO. They are from completly different genera though
Scott

[tacocat]

GMO fish that glow in the dark would be a non issue environmentally. The only serious reprecussion is that the bass bite would be off for a while. These fish would be a target for birds and large fish. Once the jellyfish genes are in the digestive tract of the predator, they are broken down into the basic amino acids.

[Flipturn88]

Thanks tacocat! That was the answer I was looking for; The chemicals don't harm the fish or the environment.

I agree scchase...injecting fish with chemicals is just wrong, which is why I this topic caught my eye.

It is a good thing that the fish are sterile because they wouldn't last for long in the wild. Their glowing would scream "eat me" to all of their predators. I still don't understand why anyone would want a fish that glows, but it seems like the fish aren't being harmed...

[RancherAZ]

My point was just are any fish born like this in there natural habitat.. the answer is no.......Then why not leave well enough alone.

RAZ

[tacocat]

I agree Ranch. I don't like the hybrid discus. I like high the natural ones, which are hard to fin nowadays. Then again, the hobby is headed that way with all the misbarred clowns, and high priced naturally occurring hybrids.

[RancherAZ]

Yea i agree im a huge FW discus keeper i love my discusand i search for the natural not the hybrid, From my research, non hybrid less chance for all the diseise that comes along with keeping them in unsafe waters.
I have a breeder of discus in Phoenix i know he dosnt breed hybrid.
But your right the hobby is heading that way lol.
I really don't get carried away with condeming to much on the hybrid only ones i really get tiffed about are these glow in the dark fish . i know that there now breed like this but it had to start somewhere.


RAZ

[Paul B]

As I said, I do not have any interest in buying a glow fish and I doubt there would be any envirnmental concerns. Remember goldfish. None of them are natural and none but a small few would live in the wild. The same with Koi and dogs for that matter. As for fish dying quickly to be used for food that is not quite right. My family has been in the fish business (eating fish) for many generations and fish suffocate when they are caught, some fish live many hours in this condition. I travel a lot to the tropics and if you saw the nets these people bring in and dump on the sand you would not be very happy but thats the way it is. In St Lucia we watched the nets being unloaded, lookdowns, wrasses, squirrelfish, moray eels, butterflies all dumped on the sand, sold for $2.00 a pound for food. Can you tell people they can't eat or they have to euthanize the fish painlessly? Anyway, thats off topic. And so far I don't think any of us have any of these fish but sadly I think most ornamental tropical fish will be engineered with different colors and habits just because there is a market for it.
Paul

[Flipturn88]

I agree Paul. The more advanced technology will get, the more nature and the environment will be affected as well. And it probably won't always be a good thing either...

[Carcharodon]

Just to point out- the company claims that GloFish (the commercial name for modified danios) are sterile, but many aquarists who have kept them have found out that they aren't. And actually, I think the sterility claim is something like a "90% guarantee that they will not breed." And then in their legal clauses they have a part that states that hobbyists cannot breed these fish themselves for profit- they are commercial property of the company.

Also, though the modification process itself may not have any poor effects on the GloFish, apparently there are numerous related problems resulting from mismanaged breeding or some other kind of mishap at the facility where they are produced. These fish are slightly more fragile than their "regular" counterparts, and many of them seem to have unusual deformations such as bent tails and "broken backs."

[scchase]

As far as the bent tails and broken backs are concerned anyone who breeds angels knows this is fairly common with as much as 20% of a batch having severe deformities at times. Most of this has to do with severe inbreeding over many generations. As far as that some of them are coming out fertile great as far as I am concerned these are no more of threat to the environment then your average bubble eyed goldfish.
As far as future genetic modifications that does scare me but is a seperate issue for me.
Their patent on the should run out in about 4 years as well and if they let fish come out that werent steralized any offspring from those will be completly fertile.
Scott

[crrichey]

I don't know how to feel about genetic engenering, but I know that it is going to continue, no matter what. I think that they have created sheep that are part spider, and their milk contains the chemicals in spider's thread. They take the milk, extract the chemicals, and use them for different things like bullet proof jackets, rope, different faberics, and other things.

[mellen]

In the long run, we'll see lots of weird genetically engineered animals and plants in the wild - kinda like Dr. Malcolm's chaos theory predictions in Jurassic Park. Hopefully they'll ALL glow (the CEOs of the genemod companies, that is) so we can round 'em all up for a big weinie roast at the beach!

Darwin, help us! ;)

(former)
Special Projects Director,
Georgia Environmental Project
1987 - 1990

[mellen]

.....mmmmmm.....S'mores!..... :p

[mellen]

By the way, I searched for an afforable blacklight to use as a moonlight for my tanks. Found a great deal on them at Aquatic Eco-Systems website. In description, using these lamps to view GloFish is prominently mentioned. I thought "what tha?..." Ordered a 24" tube for my purpose. IT IS STILL ON BACKORDER OVER A MONTH LATER! Called them in Orlando; "GloFish owners have swamped us". Google it - make yer neck hair rise...

aquaticeco.com
item AZ20071 in search bar, main page
(same as paper catalog number, page 234)

[crrichey]

Nice mellen.

[mellen]

Thanks! To anyone reading this thread, I strongly recommend two "hard" (realistic) SciFi books, "Beggars in Spain" and "Beggars and Choosers" both by Nancy Kress; both books won numerous awards. These novels are over 10 years old but chillingly on the nose for this topic of genetic engineering ideas and mis-uses/abuses we do not want to see happen. Read just part of chapter 7 in "Beggars and Choosers", pps 118 - 130 at the used book store, at least, to see what I mean...:eek2:

[PRC]

Originally posted by Flipturn88
It is a good thing that the fish are sterile because they wouldn't last for long in the wild. Their glowing would scream "eat me" to all of their predators
Um, actually it's just the opposite. Bright colors in the wild scream "don't eat me". It's generally a sign of poison and most predators have learned to avoid bright colored prey.
The scariest thing is how everyone is so certain that these animals won't have any kind of ecological impact. Considering only the direct predator/prey relationships and the possibilities of overpopulation is a very simplistic view of an incredibly complex situation.
It's widely accepted that one of the most devastating introductions of non-native species in recent history destroyed native populations not by outcompeting them but by infecting them with new pathogens for which they had no resistance. No, I'm not talking about Europeans in the Americas, but amphibians in South America. The result has been the extinction of several species of South American tree frogs.
Now, anyone hazard to guess what sort of diseases a fish carrying a few cnidarian genes might contract?

[nanocat]

Two pages and no one has commented on scchase's avatar?

Do you use mustard or relish :lol:

Love it. What a little cutie.

[ipb]

Hi,

the fish you are talking about have a jelly fish gene - this gene, which is unnatural to the host, encodes for a fluorescent protein (made up of about 600 amino acids) that is harmless (functionless) to the fish, biodegradable and non-toxic.

The protein is call green fluorescent protein or GFP

But the issue here, that these are NOT fluorescent by themselves....but you need UV light (or black light - the stuff you see in night clubs that makes all your whites seem brighter). So you fit a black-light tube to your tank and then you have glowing fish.

In the world of science we have amny tools, like GFP which provide other colours - so I am sure that soon you'll be seeing other colour coming on to the market.

[Hawkdl2]

The zebra fish (Danio rerio) has become one of the favored lab
models for developmental biology, especially for hematopoiesis
(blood cell development). In many circles it is replacing
Drosophila (fruit fly), Arabadopisis, and Xenopus (frog) for it's
fast maturation time (3 months), small adult size (3-4cm) and large offspring clutch (~200 eggs). Further, blood cell development begins 24 hours after fertilization and is visible under the microscope, and the animal has a multi-chambered heart.

Red, yellow and green fluorescent proteins (RFP, YFP and GFP) and a variety of lab modified versions of these proteins come from several marine corals and animals. These proteins have proven valuable tools to study gene expression patterns and regulation by making transgenic animals that express the proteins under the control of a gene-regulatory element (promoter/enhancer) of interest to the scientist. Labs have now created fluorescent mice, zebra fish, corn, tobacco, etc. Using these proteins, scientists can actually follow individual cells as they develop into various tissues in the animal.

There are reports of red, green, yellow, orange and even blue (!)
transgenic zebra fish.

A transgenic animal is one in which the "new gene" is introduced
into a germ cell (egg usually) and, with some experimental luck,
incorporated into some or all of the various tissues of the adult
animal. The most difficult cells to get the gene to incorporate
into are the germ line cells - sperm and oocytes. However, if you
get transgenic germ cells, you will get "germ line transmission"
which means the gene is now permanent and will transmit to offspring. Genes that are toxic or stressful to the animal either as an adult or during embryogenesis typically result in an inability to generate adult transgenic animals or a failure of the animals to reproduce.

Releasing transgenic animals or plants into the wild is both
controversial and fraught with potential environmental problems.
The "new" DNA gene introduced into by the scientist into the germ cells of the host animals will incorporate into the hosts genome at random sites and for complex reasons, usually in the middle of "active" regions of the genome. This means that at some frequency, the "new" gene can or will mess up some other gene. Sometimes this is obvious and lethal to the developing animal and sometimes it is only manifested under certain - often unknown - conditions. Transgenic animals may have unintended breeding, growth or survival advantages over "wild type" conspecifics. This can be disastrous if introduced into the wild. However, there is currently no evidence that "Glowfish" have any growth advantage over wild type Zebra fish.

One intriguing use of this type of transgenic fish is as
a "bioreactor" to produce recombinant proteins for use as
therapeutics. If this is the same fish I am aware of that was
originally generated out of China, about ~10% of the protein in it's muscle tissue is RFP. That's a very high amount. Making the fish produce, say, insulin, instead of GFP could make the fish an interesting - though controversial - method of producing therapeutic proteins.

I have seen only one paper that addresses these issues on these
transgenic Zebra fishes. As a scientist in the field of genetic
engineering (humans and mice in my case), I agree with the
California legislature's decision to study the issues before
allowing sale of these ornamental fish. However, while the theoretical risks far outweigh the meaningless value of having another ornamental fish available to aquarists, there appears to be little cause for concern and a large number of qualified scientific reviewers have agree that the fish pose no environmental threat.



Larry

[mellen]

Thank you for the professional input! That is really useful/interesting info! Agree these and other animals/plants are critically useful for all manner of research. Being originally from So FL, the nation's "biological cess pool" as far as exotic species introduction, really find it annoying that lab animals have been marketed to general public. Zebra Danios of natural strain already live happily in FW bodies throughout sub Tropics due to stupid pet owners releasing them; very common when folks can't be bothered to transport animals during a household move...bound to be GloFish already in FL lakes and streams.

In my home town, a canal ran through to the Bay so people could keep their boats and yachts docked behind their homes. In that canal was an amazing variety of introduced fish. The canal was fed by an inland freshwater spring and went from fresh to brackish and out to Bay (many So FL canals are entirely seawater, near beach, or entirely fresh, landlocked for storm drainage; just to clarify). Let's see...there were FW Angel fish, Oscars, Tetras, Malawi Cichlids, Caracins, all manner of Gold fish, Mollies, Swordtails, Platys, Guppies, Danios, Gouramis, kribensis, Polypterus, etc. inland on to Scats, Monos, Mollies again, etc. as you neared the Bay. Under a viaduct near my childhood home, one would find a ridiculous mixture of fish, all "tame" in that they would not spook - would actually seek out visitors and wait to be fed, were too smart to be caught on baited fish hooks (just happily nibbled bait off - thanks for the worm!) which a lot of local people did, even "visiting" with their former pets! Like feeding the duckies at your local park! Well fed enough they didn't predate eachother, apparently. Native minnows seemed o.k., but gamefish became scarce over time. So, yeah, a lot of ornamental fish species adapt readily, can and do survive when released... :(

[Rikko]

Larry you beat me to the punch!
Zebra danios are a HUGE research fish and will continue to be so.
These "glofish" are just a FOTM and will soon die out due to their high cost and relative poor appearance under normal lighting. (They're also illegal in California and Canada)
BBC article might be of some interest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3660289.stm

I don't really have a problem with this after much deliberation. It's a created species. So be it. It's ridiculous to try and argue that it's cruel when we have no problem accepting the fruits of the research that the horrible deaths of millions of lab rats and primates have suffered in the name of science.

I have to reiterate Paul because his words were quite powerful in the context... It is what it is.
And we are what we are. The comedy lies in us trying to pretend we're really not.

[ShadowViper]

didnt see anyone post it but here it is, http://www.glofish.com/

[chipmunk]

Originally posted by PRC
Um, actually it's just the opposite. Bright colors in the wild scream "don't eat me". It's generally a sign of poison and most predators have learned to avoid bright colored prey.
Then how come my neon colored crank baits work so well on bass and bluegill?

I know about toxic animals being brightly colored as a warning. I think it's more to serve as a recognized pattern. IOW, the last 3 times you ate one of my kind it tasted nasty and you got sick, I look exactly the same, therefore I'm not good to eat.

Then you got the other school of thought that something highly toxic that kills with one taste will weed out all the predators that are wired to eat bright colors, so the only ones that will breed are the ones that avoid these colors.

Maybe since nothing neon and toxic lives in a bass lake, bass will snap at day-glo baiots?

Just my pre caffeine buzz ramblings...

[Hawkdl2]

Unless predator fish carry around UV lights with them, they're not going to see much in the way of a warning sign. GFP, YFP, and RFP all require UV excitation in order to fluoresce.

[Papa Funk]

I did some research on Glo-Fish (which are widely available in Virginia LFS...at least in my experience)...We did (and still are) doing research on how the trait affects mate choice preference...

Numbers still need to be crunched (and now I will make a simplistic statment that can probably be disregarded by anyone who studies hard sciences) but it appears that normal zebra danios prefer to associate with glo-fish of opposite sex over individual that are phenotypically the same. It seems that the trait may be a sign of differential genetic variation that increases species success...

As for the fact of Genetic recombination or manipulation, bascially everything you eat from the grocery store from fish to chicken to apples to peanut butter to spaghetti is genetically modified..

[jrozek]

Oh they're not just for sale in Japan. I've seen them for sale at my LPS. Here is the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.glofish.com/

[GreasyMidget]

they are kinda cool lookin. i have seen them in my buddis pet store.. what would be cool is if they did it to clown fish..

[reven]

Here is a link about an article in the Wallstreet Journal. it shows the green variety. I guess people wont need to put blacklights in thier thanks anymore :)

http://www.mongabay.com/external/glowing_fish.htm

[nitroxdiver009]

these fish are on sale in amarica and have been for along time( almost a year and a half now)
originaly these fish were used to moniter water quality somehow...

i am toataly for these fish since its genitics an d not injection of chemicals( like painted tetra are just injected with paint)

i am thinking of getting these fish and i am amazed at how cheep they are for being genticaly engeneered especialy if they are all steril and have to create a new batch every time (boy would i love to get a non steral pair...)

[Kamko]

Originally posted by RancherAZ
Fish or any living being should not be a specimin of experiments of such.RAZ

Just FYI any drugs manufactured to save people's lives are daily injected into rats, mice, fish, monkeyes, (take your pick). It has been done for years and unfortunately it will be done for even longer because there are no ther feasible ways to test new medications. How do you think scientists test for lethality of chemicals? Saying that it is all wrong is probably the first response in anyone, yet it is in essence naiive. Why? Laws forbid human volunteers to be used in testing new drugs, until they pass through animal testing and there aren't many cases when a new drug takes path around this procedure (in few cases such as life-threatening cases of cancer, leukemia, or need for an artificial heart). As bad as it all sounds, experiments of this type have been done for quite some time and the fish aren't the first to glow, and that's why I am surprised at many of your responses. Well, I guess I've provided some useful info. I do not support animal experiments of any kind, yet some are a dreadful necessity.

[rufio173]

Thanks Larry!

Hey Larry, thanks for that scientific input. I've done research with xenopus laevis (trangenesis) and I think that all in all, it is a matter of preference.

I think that if there have been enough studies and literature published on the safety of the organisms, then it is fine. Like you said, there is the off chance that maybe, and that's a big maybe that somehow these genetically altered fish will cause some major biological catastrophe. There are many safeguards put in place by scientists and the fact is that most of these organisms would most likely not flourish in the natural environment.

If you like your fish to be extremely unnatural looking and just plain weird (think about all those butt-ugly ornamental goldfish out there), then go for it.

I personally, like to recreate a natural looking environment in my tanks and definitely do not like the look of freakshows swimming around in my tank, but to each their own. As technology progresses, genetic manipulation (through molecular approaches rather than hybridization husbandry) will become far more commonplace and much easier to do.

Like with any controversial technology, it has the ability to create as well as destroy.

Peace,
John H.

[Shoestring Reefer]

If they had a SW glow fish, I'd buy it. Maby they could work on mollies, next.

[Hawkdl2]

John,

The problem is that there is very little peer-reviewed published "safety" data on these fish. What exists is from the inventors of the fish and the studies (which I’ve read) are “limited� to say the least. Whether these fish will survive or pose a threat to the environment is essentially pure speculation on the part of both sides.

One issue is that these fish are not born sterile, they are made sterile by the manufacturer after birth. A small percentage of these fish are capable of spawning. I don't know how good the company has become at sterilizing, but the common techniques are usually only about 90% effective. I would guess the company does better than this.

The strain of fish being sold are not those originally created to study water contamination, but the technology is the same as is the host fish species. The water contamination fish used a gene promoter that was induced by the presence of a particular contaminant. In the presence of a high enough level of the contaminant, the associated gene was turned on. The GlowFish use a muscle-specific promoter to drive very high levels of fluorescent protein expression. In fact upwards of 17% or more of the total protein mass in the muscle cells in these fish is florescent protein. What this means is that these fish expend a considerable amount of energy and resources (amino acids) to produce a lot of what is a completely useless protein for the fish. Such an organism might be predicted to be at a competitive disadvantage in the wild - but no one knows this for certain until they are released. It also means the fish are being considered as bioreactors to produce proteins for other purposes – therapeutics. In fact, the scientists who developed the fish propose that the fish (or another larger fish species) could be eaten to get the beneficial value of the expressed transgene (though not GFP).

Also, you can in fact see the GFP with normal lighting, but it takes black lights to see them actually look flourescent. The abilty to see them in daylight is what makes them more commercially interesting than all the transgenic Zebra fish that came before them.

Interestingly, the two cloned fluorescent prints (GFP form a jelly fish and RFP from a mushroom – Discosomas sp.) have been themselves genetically altered by a scientific reagent supply company, Clonetech) to create cyan, blue and other fluorescent proteins. Also, the scientists have cross bred RFP and GFP fish to create yellow and orange strains.


Larry

[Balor]

I think that glofish have a pretty limited environmental impact persay. Let's take a look at some other genetically modified fish that pose a greater risk

****http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/04/29/MN155761.DTL
It looks like a North Atlantic salmon. But it grows seven times faster, and it's much more attractive to the opposite sex than a normal salmon.

It's a transgenic fish, the first genetically engineered animal under review for the U.S. food supply. Embedded in every cell of its body are genes from the Chinook salmon and the ocean pout fish that make it grow more quickly.
"These genetically engineered fish will pose a threat to our natural resources," said Natasha Benjamin, program officer with the Institute for Fisheries Resources, a research arm of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
***

This salmon does poes a risk. Not only would it interact with native species, it wouldn't know the correct breeding paths inherent with the native species.


Further more, other experts say that more than 75% of our world's ocean fish stocks are being depleted by ppl who like to eat fish. In my mind, this is just like many other environmental issues that take attention away from real priorities. The attitude of some our members show the double standard (btw....i want to make it clear that im not trying to offend anyone. I eat meat) I think with a little more education on issues that really matter, real change can happen.