Anyone catch it?

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Originally Posted by Beardedragon

Currently at a pet co i was reading a article in a reptiles Magazine about genetic engineering in ball pythons( it showed a pied as a example), and how they might be able to make the white different colors :cool::D

I'm a guy but having a Hot pink pied would be awesome. Especially if they make glow in the dark ball pythons.

What do you guys think other if changing them did not effect health or cost a lot of money( which it would)

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Just wondering, What was the name of the article? And what month's issue is it found in? Jan or Feb?

I dont think anyone has made a transgenic reptile species.......most of our methods for making modifications to an organism's genome or replacing genes have been pioneered in the mouse and have been tailored to the developmental biology and reproductive physiology of mammals.....

However, there have been recent advancements in making transgenic chickens.....http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06...ge_lab_mic.php

There are also a lot of methods for fish.....in fact the world's first transgenic pet is a zebrafish called Glofish

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

I dont think anyone has made a transgenic reptile species......

url]http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06/lab_chickens_challenge_lab_mic.php[/url]

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I was wrong...there is at least one very recent patent application claiming the establishment of transgenic snakes expressing GFP!........including ball pythons, king snakes, and corn snakes

See United States Patent 20080005807

Some of it very technical (which isnt too big of a problem for me) but its also very legalese ......But it is worth a read....It is pretty interesting......

I recommend reading "Egg Injection and Incubation", "Hatching and Propogation", and "Utility"

Bob Clark seems to have provided the animals......

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Originally Posted by muddoc

If our (meaning the herptoculturists) theories on Pieds is correct, then the white of a Pied is caused by a form of Leucism, in which the chromatophores are missing in the skin cells in the white areas. This would mean that pigments are present in those areas, but the skin is not capable of holdinh the pigment. With that said, you cannot change the color of "missing color".

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Under black light:cool: (~395 nm) and with a GFP or GFP-derivative transgenic snake, you may be able to change the missing color......

a leucistic is even mentioned in the patent above.

Your correct, a lot of scientific talk.... not tonight.... *zzz

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Originally Posted by Beardedragon

Currently at a pet co i was reading a article in a reptiles Magazine about genetic engineering in ball pythons( it showed a pied as a example), and how they might be able to make the white different colors :cool::D

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Anyone know the details on the original article he found?

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Under black light:cool: (~395 nm) and with a GFP or GFP-derivative transgenic snake, you may be able to change the missing color......

a leucistic is even mentioned in the patent above.

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I will not get into a debate with someone that much more knowledgable on the subject than myself, but I would love to see that animal. In my tiny little brain, I can't understand how it could work, but science these days does many things that I don't understand, but definitely appreciate.

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Originally Posted by muddoc

I will not get into a debate with someone that much more knowledgable on the subject than myself, but I would love to see that animal. In my tiny little brain, I can't understand how it could work, but science these days does many things that I don't understand, but definitely appreciate.

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Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) has intrinsic fluorescence, built-in to its structure. It does not need to be within a chromatophore to fluoresce.

This is why it is useful to so many biologists....if you want to follow the movement or development or development of pretty much any tissue, you can try to selectively express a GFP protein in those cells and then you can shin UV light on the organism and watch for sometime to gather the data you need.

If you want to track a particular protein, you can try to fuse the protein with GFP to track the life of the protein in an individual cell.

Basically GFP has been shown to express itself and function in all kinds of cells.

Wild-type GFP fluoresces green, but researchers have created mutant GFP proteins that fluoresce different colors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_f...FP_derivatives

Maybe a Leucistic ball python might show the fluorescence better than a wild-type because there no other pigments to interfere with it.

GFP originated from Jellyfish, and is really amazing to see in person when fused with different animals. They have already done it to pigs, and they actually breed true and produce GFP carrying piglets.

Awesome stuff :)

Thanks for that explanation Mendel. I think I understand it a bit better.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...deoid=19045233