Researchers at the University of
Boston recently grew a human ear on the back of a
mouse.
Japanese researchers create glowing mice
June 13, 1997
OSAKA, Japan (AP) -- They're green, they're rodents, they glow in the dark -- and scientists hope someday they'll work for medical researchers.
The first generation of glowing green mice entered the world this week in a laboratory in western Japan, after geneticists at Osaka University injected mouse embryos with the DNA of bioluminescent North American jellyfish.
Professor Masaru Okabe and his team started the project four years ago in an effort to develop new methods to observe the internal development of fetuses.
Okabe says medical researchers will be able to use the technique in a variety of ways, including tracing white blood cells in cancer research.
"We have also developed the technology to make specific cells glow as markers, so the effects of research can be observed without killing the animals and opening them up," said Dr. Shuichi Yamada, a member of the team that bred the mice.
Mice offspring to inherit characteristics
Yamada said the green mice will be able to pass on their unique characteristic to offspring for the next five generations. Under ultraviolet light, their bodies appear a gleaming green.
"We have also developed the technology to make specific cells glow as markers, so the effects of research can be observed without killing the animals and opening them up."
--Dr. Shuichi Yamada, member of the research team
But one independent researcher raised doubts about what all of this means for science, predicting that scientists will still have to perform surgery on test mice to study the full effects of their experiments.
"The marker technology has potential. But I have my doubts as to how significant a breakthrough it is for medical research.... They should have made the announcement on Halloween."
-- Dr. Robert Shiurba, biologist at Tokyo University.
The vibrant hues of the experimental mice disappear when hair grows over their bodies, but uncovered parts such as their feet and mouths continue to glow well into adulthood.
Fluorescent rabbits and monkeys may be just around the corner.
"The marker technology has potential. But I have my doubts as to how significant a breakthrough it is for medical research," said Dr. Robert Shiurba, a biologist at Tokyo University. "They should have made the announcement on Halloween."
More humane research?
"The technique can be applied to other mammals, and since they are injected at the fertilized egg stage the effects will be transmitted to offspring," Yamada said.
The researchers believe the technology could even "open the door to a more humane approach to medical research."
Biologists often cut open test animals to study what happens when they are injected with drugs or diseases, he said. Now they could be able to peer into innards of the baby rodents to trace the growth and progress of cells.
Like Shiurba the biologist, Fusako Nogami, an official at ALIVE, a Tokyo-based animal protection group, said she believes scientists will still have to kill and examine their test animals.
"(The scientists) are just trying to feed their own curiosity," she said.
But whatever happens, the green mice are merely the latest example of scientists tinkering with this species.
Using the latest techniques of a science known as tissue engineering, researchers at the University of Boston recently grew a human ear on the back of a mouse -- apparently with no adverse effects to the hybrid rodent.
This has led to hope that scientists will one day come up with the scientific breakthrough that would enable them to regrow noses and ears for humans.
For the moment, Yamada has no fear that the glowing rodents will be exploited for unscientific purposes. "Who would want to eat such a thing?" he said.
Yamada also said researchers have no intention of marketing the mice as glow-in-the-dark pets.
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