Inter-generic hybrid.

[SnowyzMom]

My main concern with hybrid/chimera ANYthing is how amazingly often some of these things get loose in nature. I hope these stay in the labs.

Um, and yeah, by the way, there IS a gene that can cause spontaneous mutations from one generation to the next so that it's quite plausible for one generation to end up looking nothing like it's parents. This gleaned from newschannels, science and university studies. I'm not saying a rabbit is going to pop a giraffe anytime soon....OWCH! But clearly this is pretty close to spontaneous evolution....the university in question saw it occurring in a study they did on birds....to my way of thinking, a pretty neat way of Nature ensuring survival under climate change or drastic living condition changes.

Anyways these fish mentioned are all lab raised currently, so here's hoping that it's for a "good cause" other than $ and that they do NOT get released by some pet owner down the line and really muck things up out in nature.

 

[Bignose]

Yes, we all understand mutations, but where in nature does transplantation occur? Where in nature does mixing of two different species' genetic material occur? Very rarely during hybridization, but remember different species fish are just that, different species -- so it is not like breeding a golden retriever and a bulldog to make a mutt. The dogs are different varieties, but all the same species. Inter-species breeding is extremely rare*. Rasboras and danios are both cyprinids, yes, but are relatively far away on the family tree. There would be no chance of interbreeding in nature.

And, maybe it is just my optimism that this can be used for good, though commercial interets and good may just be the same thing: if many more fish were able to be commercially bred easily, the pressures on the wild populations could be lessened. But, I think we pretty much all agree that we don't what chimeras commercially, just the unadulterated original species.



* Footnote: Except maybe on Star Trek, half human/Klingons, half betazoid/humans, half Vulcan/humans running around all over the place there!

 

[k2snowboards88]

Isn't this what we have a hybrids forum for?

the reason they made these fish is for money, they want to mass produce hard to breed fish cheaply, you put the ovaries and testies of microrasboras inside Zebra Danios and your getting mateing non-stop , then you sell the slew of microrasboras (acctually a danio FYI) then you take your wad of cash and buy yourself hapiness

You win the angry man award. But your also 100% right.

 

[Opcn]

haha thanks.

I'd like to point out once again that this is a transplant of liveing cells and that the fry produced will really be the offspring of whatever blastula the ovaries and testies came from so it would be no worse to release these chymeras than to release rosy barbs or zebra danios (whichever one the ovaries and testies are from) because the next generation wil be as if this never happened.

 

[Lateral Line]

Opcn, you seem to be assuming that the transplanted cells were a replacement for the original cells. That would not produce a chimera. Transplanting the embryo from one egg shell to another de-nucleated one doesn't really gain you much, as I see it. Can you?

 

[Opcn]

No LL no denucleation, the cells from a blastula were implanted into an embrio, the hormones would be a bit off and adversly affect the development but no genetic information would be shared, so the offspring would be of one species or another

 

[Lateral Line]

>>> the cells from a blastula were implanted into an embrio

Okay, I see where you are coming from now. I do not think that you are necessarily correct. At the 64 cell stage, after the blastula has formed the cavity, the cells are still undiffrentiated/unspecialised, remember, both embryos are at the same stage.

I am guessing that the cells from the 2 blastula stage embryos would almalgamate to form a 128 cell superblastula. If the technique is working, which they seem to claim, then cells carrying both types of genetic information will continue to divide, and eventually specialise.

The possibilities here are manifold. The more I think about it, the less likely the technique sounds viable. How do you see the development continuing?

I would have thought that introducing an alien blastula into a later developed, post gastrolation say, embryo would result in rejection, or at best/worst case, (pick your point of view), grow as a parasitic twin.

I have not yet found a server which will let me read the full papaer without paying. I hate that, scientific research should be in the public domain.

 

[chris_1127]

>>> The possibilities here are manifold.

..as in exhaustive??

 

[Opcn]

I got the feeling that they took some cells from the blastula and put them into another, maybe even another that had begun to differentiate. anyways there is no denucleation, no genetic information swap, only hormone changes a frankenfish if you will.

 

[Lateral Line]

Yeah, but when the cells start specialising, there will be 2 seperate "construction plans" in use, and presumably roughly equal numbers of cells of each type. When the ovary for example forms, would it form from only one type of cells?

I can see a case for this if one genetic system is dominant over the other, then the hormonal concentration gradients could favour one kind of cells over the other. I can also see a case where both sets of material are expressed each favouring it's own cell types resulting in the cells migrating to one of two seperate ovaries. Finally, if the hormonal signals are similar in the two species, (not an absurd supposition), then both cell types would construct the organ resulting in what?

As I said before, the more I think about this, the more improbable the whole thing sounds. I really need to read this paper.

 

[Opcn]

well thereproductive orgains are an offshoot of the GI tract so I'd think that they would come from the endolemma (think thats the correct word) thats only ~44 cells at the ~128 cell stage and they probably know the approximat region that they are looking for so lets say there is only one cell that will do the job I'd say that they would have a 1/10 chance of getting it or them if you need more than one,then the hormones of the developing embryo that you put it into would dictate the structural development, at this stage there is no immune system so you dont have to worry about rejectionall you have to worry about is planting it in the right spot, I'm assumeing that the ebryo was a bit further along than the blastula so I'd guess they would have a higher likelyhood of getting the right spot say 1 in 4 that gives us about a 1 in 40 chance of success which is approximately what they got.

I wonder if anyone else is reading this at this point

 

[Lateral Line]

>>> I'm assumeing that the ebryo was a bit further along than the blastula

Hmmm, but that is not what they said...

 

[Opcn]

I just read the last three words of the sentance and you are correct sir, I've been wrong all along about the life stage bit, However the method I laid out still seems quite possible.

 

[Catfish Fanatic]

on reply to species hypridation i thought humans could breed wwith sheep corect me if im wrong

 

[Fishy411]

i really dont see what the big deal is. Danios breed fast enough. THey're in no danger. I can also see why they use danios. Theyre pretty plain. I may sound like some insensitive jerk but im not.