Pet Fish That Glow Under Black Light

Electric Green Tetras - a genetically-modified Blackskirt Tetra. Photo courtesy: Somethingsphishy.com

Who wouldn’t want a glow-in-the-dark pet fish? That’s exactly what Yorktown Technologies thought when they brought a genetically-modified pet fish called the GloFish to market in 2003.

The fluorescent fish, a modified version of the zebra fish, was undoubtedly popular, and as a result, this February Yorktown introduced the Electric Green Tetra fish, an altered version of the blackskirt Tetra fish. It’s a small freshwater fish that with the help of glowing coral genetic material, turns neon in black light, according to The Washington Post.

But environmentalists fear that these two fish (the GloFish [zebra fish] and the Electric Green Tetra [blackskirt tetras]) are actually much different than they seem because the Electric Green Tetra can survive in US waterways, particularly those in South Florida, while the GloFish (zebra fish) can only survive in southern Asia waters.

A Blackskirt tetra as they occur in nature. Photo courtesy: animal-world.com

“My worry is that they’ll be such a novelty that they will be imported back to [South America] and kids will let them go and they’ll start interbreeding with fish whose genomes are very similar,’’ said Barry Chernoff, a freshwater fish biologist and chair of the environmental studies program at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn on The Washington Post. “We would see the spreading of the fluorescent coral gene in the native fish.’’

Once people tire of their pets, many decide to set them free, which creates a huge problem in the wild, like in the case of the Burmese python in the South Florida. Yorktown’s CEO claims that the fish in question isn’t aggressive and rather vulnerable, so it’s not likely to become an invasive species. But researchers aren’t so sure.

“The neotropical region contains the most diverse freshwater fish fauna and complex freshwater ecosystem in the world, with some 6,025 fish species so far recognized,’’ Gordon McGregor Reid, chair of the Wetlands International Freshwater Fish Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said in an e-mail to The Washington Post. “We meddle with this at our peril.”

Canada Gives Limited Approval to Enviropig.

Photo courtesy: Scott Bauer, ARS.USDA

Sometimes being Canadian doesn't feel so good. Canada has made a controversial move; and, I fear it is another giant step forward in the race to a world-wide diet made up entirely of GMOs. These piglets may look harmless enough; but, they are harbouring a dirty little secret inside those cuddly pink bodies. These piglets are genetically modified.

Canada has approved limited production of animals dubbed "enviropigs™," a genetically modified breed of pigs producing up to 65% less phosphorous in pig poo and urine. The genetic modification is so complete these pigs pass the ability to produce less phosphorous along to their young.

The very idea that a genetically modified animal rates the moniker "enviro-" points to the severity of the issue addressed by the science behind these pigs. It also raises the spector of nature run amok due to all these artifical changes to their physiology.

Phosphorous is a fertilizer found in animal and human wastes, which runs off or discharges to surface waters, where it spurs large algal blooms. The algae use up the oxygen in the water, leaving behind a "dead zone," an area of lake, river, or ocean where nothing can live due to the hypoxic (oxygenless) conditions.

How does the enviropig work (image in extended)? And does the dead zone problem justify permitting production of these "franken-pigs"?

This video is slightly over 11 minutes in length; but, gives a good overall view of gmos.



The genetic modification used by scientists at the University of Guelph, Ontario involves an enzyme known as phytase. Phosphorous plays an essential role in the growth of bones, construction of DNA and RNA, and in regulating cell and organ processes. But most of the phosphorous in a grain-based diet are bound up as organic complexes which pigs cannot digest. Supplementing pig diets with phytase, itself produced from genetically modified fungi Aspergillus Niger, has been advocated as an environmental protection measure.


Photo courtesy: Enviropig™, University of Guelph, Ontario

Scientists spent over a decade searching for the genetic secret to digestion of organic phosphorous. They found the genes in the DNA of Escherichia Coli bacteria. In order to ensure the segment of DNA could function in mammals, scientists paired the E. coli DNA with a DNA promotor from mice. The promotor takes care that the bacterial DNA is transcribed. In fact, early tests showed that the genetic modification not only enables pigs to produce phytase in their saliva, but the ability is inherited. Pigs in the eighth generation still have the gene, which has been transmitted unaltered to successive piglets.

Unlike some genetically modified strains, which are engineered or contractually designed so that farmers much purchase expensive new stocks every season, enviropiglets inherit the genetic advantage. Additionally, the cost of raising pigs is reduced because farmers do not need to supplement pig diets with phosphorous nor with commercially manufactured phytase. Waste treatment costs, to manage the phosphorous in manure, can also be saved.

Canada has approved only limited production of the Enviropigs, in controlled research environments. It will be years before meat from genetically engineered pigs could be available for human consumption. "This will be probably the most significant transgenic food to be approved. We're in new territory," Steven Liss, a spokesperson for the project, told National Geographic.

Are genetically modified pigs another "franken-food" risk that we need to fear? Certainly, management of the unintended consequences is an essential part of such science. Because phosphorous is a natural and essential mineral, the potential risks are less scary than some projected genes-run-amok scenarios. And given that phytase supplements rely today on genetic engineering, this step is a matter of scale, rather than principle. In the face of the potential damage dead zones cause in our eco-systems, no solution can be discarded without investigation.

Via TreeHugger