Science News Review

Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Glowing… Marmosets?

May 29 at 5:05pm by Aileen

Green Glowing Monkey Paws

Well, I’ve got to admit this much-touted development in the world of medical research took me somewhat by surprise. Mostly because it caused me to stop eating my grilled cheese sandwich mid-bite to wonder “Huh? Why in the world would they do that?”

Seems this week’s Nature is reporting that researchers in Japan have managed to genetically engineer the green fluorescent protein gene into primates – specifically marmosets. Yes, these endearingly cute little monkeys have been engineered to express the gene in their hair roots, skin and blood, all of which glow green under UV light sources.

Now, I can understand why tropical fish aficionados might want several tetras of each color (they’ve got several now) in their aquarium to impress friends, neighbors and potential mates, but glowing green marmosets? You’ve got to have a primate license to own any kind of monkey or ape! The researchers responsible for this development say that this feat of genetic engineering could lead to monkeys being bred with genetic changes that would make them good animal models of human diseases.

Researchers have been breeding genetically engineered mice for decades to exhibit specific genetically influenced disease conditions so they can work on treatments and cures, but rodents aren’t close enough to humans on the evolutionary tree to be all that useful for the purpose. Primates would, they contend, be much better models because they actually are close to humans genomically speaking. If a team believes it has discovered a particular gene that causes something like Parkinson’s Disease or Alzheimers or ALS or such, they could engineer a line of monkeys that carry the defect – thus suffer the disease – so researchers can play with various methods of treatment that might someday be effective for people who suffer the disease.

Transgenic primates have been created before, but have never managed to pass the engineering on to their offspring. This means “lines” of, say, Parkinson’s monkeys haven’t proved out.

The development is causing some concern among animal rights activists and anti-vivisectionists who object to creating populations of genetically diseased primates exclusively so they can serve as the subjects for painful (and often fatal) experiments. The new development will open the ethical debates that must accompany animal-based research, so perhaps will be a good thing.

And what of these glow in the dark marmosets? Well, humans that glow in the dark generally don’t get that trait from jellyfish genes, so these little monkeys aren’t actually useful for medical research beyond ‘the usual’ medical research performed on little monkeys. I figure they’ll start showing up at high end pet shops along with those multi-colored glow in the dark fish, a curiosity for the rich and bored. Those clever Japanese!

Links:

Glowing green monkeys set ‘dangerous precedent’
‘Glowing’ Transgenic Monkeys Carry Green Fluorescent Protein Gene