So the first line might be a little..misleading. Because sadly, glow in the dark cats don’t exist in real life. But we have successfully made some! Our cover in this edition shows one of the adorable kitties that ended up being successful in gaining its glow in the dark genome. But how was this achieved? How did it happen? And how does this all connect to…AIDS!?
The Mayo Clinic Scientist (yes. It’s actually called “mayo clinic”) made these cats do something a little bit different from just making glow in the dark cats. Researchers have found out a way to make glow in the dark animals using a gene in an animal called the “Crystal Jelly” (Aequorea victoria), a type of jellyfish that, you guessed it, glows in the dark! Scientists have used this method to create a various kind of glow in the dark animals. Such as pigs, mice and even fish you can buy at pet stores! The process is simple and humane. It’s done with a simple egg modification, with scientists throwing the gene from the Crystal Jelly into the egg or an embryo of an animal they choose and…Tadaa! You have yourself a glow in the dark animal.
So…How is this connected to AIDS? Well with a scientific article posted in 2011, they did something extraordinary. They added a bit of the gene that makes animals glow in the dark (called GFP. Which stands for green fluorescent protein.) with a gene from the rhesus macaque (a type of monkey!) that blocks the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV, Which actually causes AIDS in cats). Didn’t get any of that? It means that by blocking the feline immunodeficiency virus using the gene of the monkey, it can prevent AIDS completely.
Okay we now know how they made the cats glow in the dark in the first place. But why was the glow in the dark used? Well how do we know if the gene modification worked in the first place? We’re obviously not going to give kitten’s a potentially deadly disease to test that!
Remember what I said earlier? They added the GFP gene with the monkey gene. Meaning if the cats did receive the gene and the genome modification was a success…the cats should glow! And you can probably guess what happened after that.
Look at em’!
So making them glow in the dark was a confirmation method to change the animals physical appearance to factually prove the gene is active and working. Successfully preventing the cats from ever being able to contract AIDS.
Your first question is probably if the cats are okay now. Well, since the study was conducted in southern Korea, we don’t have factual evidence about if the cats are currently alive. But maybe questions like “Will the genome change make them live slightly less?” or “Are the cats in pain?” can be answered quite easily! The GFP genome (along with other genes that may cause glow in dark traits) is COMPLETELY safe. All animals that have it do indeed break nature’s laws on genetics. But it is entirely and completely safe. These animals are likely totally okay and are living happily in a home or in the lab for continued studying. There is a high likelihood that they are still alive and kicking.
To recap, Scientists have made fluorescent cats that glow in the dark. And are completely immune to cat aids.
How cool is that?
