First there was the glow-in-the-dark cat... Now meet Tagon, the world's first glowing dog

By Daily Mail Reporter
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

By day, Tagon looks like any other beagle.

But under the cover of darkness, she can glow an eerie green.

South Korean scientists say they have created a fluorescent dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

 

Before and after: Tagon's paw is like any other dog's in daylight, but glows bright green under ultraviolet light when she is given a special antibiotic

The breakthrough comes three years after U.S. boffins made a glow-in-the-dark cat by modifying its DNA, also in the hope of treating a range of conditions.

 

Tagon, who was born in 2009, was found to beam bright green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic. 

Researchers from Seoul National University (SNU)'s College of Veterinary Medicine, who completed the two-year test, said the ability to glow can be turned on or off by adding a drug to the dog's food.

Glowing with pride: Tagon feeding her puppies at Seoul National University's College of Veterinary Medicine, where she is helping with vital research

Lead researcher Lee Byeong-chun said: 'The creation of Tagon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases.'

He said the dog was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that the university team used to make the world's first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005.

Glowing ginger tom: Mr Green Genes of New Orleans was created by US scientists in 2008 to help find cures for diseases like cystic fibrosis

The scientist said that because there are 268 illnesses that humans and dogs have in common, creating dogs that artificially show such symptoms could aid treatment methods for diseases that afflict humans.

The latest discovery published in Genesis, an international journal, took four years of research costing roughly 3.2 billion won ($3 million) to make the dog and conduct the necessary verification tests, Yonhap news agency said.

In 2008, scientists created Mr Green Genes of New Orleans - the country's first glowing ginger tom.

They adapted the six-month-old's DNA to see if a gene could be introduced harmlessly into an animal's genetic sequence.

The gene in question, known as green fluorescence protein, expressed itself in mucous membranes - causing his mouth and ears to radiate.

Because the fluorescence gene will go alongside the cystic fibrosis gene, it will make it easier for experts to spot the condition.

Glow-in-the-Dark Mushrooms Discovered

By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer

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A newly identified luminescent fungus called Mycena luxaeterna was discovered in a forest in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The mushroom caps are tiny, under a half inch (8 mm) in diameter and the stems have a jelly-like structure. The glow is easier to observe at night (right). Credit: Cassius V. Stevani, Chemistry Institute, University of Sao Paulo.

As if teensy night-lights were dangling from tree trunks and branches, glow-in-the-dark mushrooms illuminate the forests across the globe. Now, scientists have discovered several species of such radiant 'shrooms.

The freaky findings, reported today in the journal Mycologia, increases the number of aglow mushroom species from 64 to 71, shedding light on the evolution of luminescence in nature.

The newly identified mushrooms, which emit a bright, yellowish-green light 24 hours a day, were found in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico. They include four species new to science and three new reports of luminescence in known species.

"If daylight was not so bright you could see them during the day, but the greenish-yellow light does not stand out against daylight so we cannot visualize them," lead researcher Dennis Desjardin of San Francisco State University told LiveScience. "But take them into a dark room at any time of day, and wait until your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you'll see them glow very nicely."

Here are some of the highlights:

• Found on sticks in an Atlantic forest habitat, Mycena luxaeterna is tiny, each cap spanning 0.3 inches (8mm) in diameter, with jelly-like stems. (The species' name, which means "eternal light," was inspired by Mozart's "Requiem.")
• One psychedelic-looking mushroom, called Mycena silvaelucens, was found on the bark of a standing tree at the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Borneo, Malaysia. Each mushroom cap measuries just over a half inch (18 mm) in diameter.
• So-called Mycena luxarboricola was collected from the bark of a living tree in an old growth Atlantic forest in Paraná, Brazil. Each cap measures less than 0.2 inches (5 mm) in diameter. (The species' name, which means "light dwelling on a tree," was also inspired by Mozart's "Requiem.")

Three quarters of glowing mushrooms, including the newly identified species, belong to the Mycena genus, a group of mushrooms that feed off and decompose organic matter.

Discovered on the bark of a standing tree in Borneo, Malaysia, this new glow-in-the-dark mushroom called Mycena silvaelucens emits a yellowish-green light throughout the day, though it's easier to see at night (right). Credit: Brian Perry, University of Hawaii.

"What interests us is that within Mycena, the luminescent species come from 16 different lineages, which suggests that luminescence evolved at a single point and some species later lost the ability to glow," Desjardin said.

Tiny mushrooms called Mycena luxarboricola were discovered in an old growth forest in Parana, Brazil and described in the journal Mycologia. Though they glow all day, it's best to observe them at night (right). Credit: Cassius V. Stevani, Chemistry Institute, University of Sao Paulo.

He and other scientists still have many questions about such glow-in-the-dark fungi, including how and why they light up. They know the luminescent process is similar to that of glowing bacteria and other luminescent organisms. For instance, the glowing involves a luciferin-luciferase mediated reaction that emits light in the presence of water and oxygen. But they are not sure of the exact chemical compounds involved in the reaction.

As for why, Desjardin says some fungi glow to lure in nocturnal animals that aid in the dispersal of the mushroom's spores, which are similar to seeds and are capable of growing into new organisms. Fungi, along with plants, animals and protists are considered eukaryotes by biologists, meaning "true kernel," due to the packaging of the genome into the membrane-bounded compartment called the nucleus. (Simple bacteria and archaea, which lack a cell nucleus, are considered prokaryotes.)

To date, Desjardin has discovered more than 200 new fungi species, including a phallic mushroom.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

Glowing Monkeys Make More Glowing Monkeys the Old-Fashioned Way

• By Alexis Madrigal

The first genetically modified primates that can pass their modifications to their offpsring have been created by Japanese scientists.

The marmosets, pictured above, express a green fluorescent protein in their skin. The gene for producing the glow was delivered to the first marmoset embryos via a modified virus. But now that modification method could become unnecessary. One male marmoset, number 666, fathered a child (pictured at right) that also contained the transgenes.

“The birth of this transgenic marmoset baby is undoubtedly a milestone,” developmental biologists Gerald Schatten and Shoukhrat Mitalipov at the Pittsburgh Development Center and Oregon Stem Cell Center, respectively wrote in a commentary accompanying the study Thursday in Nature. “The cumbersome and often frustrating process of making a transgenic animal from scratch need now only occur with founder animals.”

Transgenic animals are a key tool in the biomedical researchers’ toolbox. They allow scientists to model the function of genes and the efficacy of treatments. Many transgenic mice lines exist, but often the small rodents are too different from humans to effectively extrapolate their responses to human beings. Primates, on the other hand, are far closer biologically to humans, but before the new technique, creating primate models had proven difficult and expensive.

Now, biologists may be able to produce whole groups of marmosets that mimic humans with genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.

“Subsequent generations can be produced by natural propagation, with the eventual establishment of transgene-specific monkey colonies — a potentially invaluable resource for studying incurable human disorders, and one that may also contribute to preserving endangered primate species,” Schatten and Shoukhrat continued.

Instead of using bonobos or chimps, the research team led by Erika Sasaki at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Japan picked the common marmoset because its “size, availability, and unique biological characteristics” make it a potentially useful animal, particularly in tough fields like neuroscience and stem cell research.

GLOWING ANIMALS: Pictures of Beasts Shining for Science

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Crystal Jelly How does it glow? Green fluorescent protein, naturally occurring What can we learn? In 1961 researcher Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts noticed a molecule in this jellyfish that glowed bright green under ultraviolet light (as pictured). After extracting the molecule from 10,000 specimens, Shimomura found the protein that creates the glow. At some point, a light bulb went off. Some of Shimomura's colleagues realized that the protein could be attached to other proteins--enabling scientists to mark proteins of their choice with a green glow. Since then, Shimomura's green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been used to decrypt previously invisible processes, like the spread of cancer or the development of nerve cells--earning Shimomura and colleagues a Nobel Prize in 2008. Fluorescent proteins have also been used to engineer some truly strange beasts (and the odd plant), such as the glowing puppies, monkeys, mice, fish and other animals on the following pages. --Chris Combs, May 14, 2009 —Photograph courtesy Osamu Shimomura and Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Click here for the rest of the gallery..........Next >>