Friday, July 31, 2009

Anyone bred the Glofish? The genetically altered zebra danio?

Many of you are aware of the genetically altered Zebra Danio that has been injected with the color genes from corals that make them glow. There is word that they are sterile, but other articles say they are not. Has anyone personally been able to breed them?
Answers:
Aside from their brilliant color, GloFish庐 fluorescent zebra fish are the same as other zebra fish in every way. This includes everything from general care and temperature preferences to growth rate and life expectancy.
This means that they can be bred as easily as regular danios, but they are patented so the selling of them in pet stores raises funds for the labs that created them for more research.
A
dont know anything about the breeding but the injected genes may only effect the skin of the fish and not change any the the rna/dna in the sex organs. if this is the case the offspring wouldn't carry the color genes from the coral and would just be a normal fish.
I haven't, but I've heard they can be bred just like their danio cousins.

From first source article: "Laboratory tests1 showed that viability, reproductive success, and temperature tolerance of transgenics were equal to or somewhat less than those of the wild type."

From second source article: "These human- manipulated zebra danios do produce viable young with each other that also glow which in time, will probably put the patent holders out of business. Also, they can breed with all the above zebra danios and related danios. I do not know what would happen to the anemone gene though with mixed breeding."

Then again, I've seen plenty of sites that say due to their mutations, they should, by the laws of nature, be sterile. So. well this is a waste of space, but I have no clue..

I'm so confused.

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