Hong Kong scientists have created a genetically modified sheep that expresses a roundworm fat gene that is also found in nuts, seeds, fish and leafy greens and helps reduce the risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease.
According to the scientists, who created the sheep, the baby-sheep is growing very well and looks healthy.
Scientists inserted the gene that is linked to the production of polyunsaturated fatty acids into a donor cell taken from the ear of a Chinese Merino sheep.
The nucleus of the cell was then inserted into denucleated unfertilized egg and implanted into the womb of a surrogate mother-sheep.
The gene that was inserted in the genome of sheep was derived from the roundworm C. elegans, has been shown to increase unsaturated fatty acids in worms and is considered “healthy” for human consumption.
Public concerns about the safety of genetically modified food are taken seriously in China and it will take some years before meat from such transgenic animals appear in Chinese food markets.
“The Chinese government encourages transgenic projects but we need to have better methods and results to prove that transgenic plants and animals are harmless and safe for consumption, that is crucial,” Du said.
The United States is a world leader in producing GM crops. Food and Drug Administration has already approved the sale of food from clones and their offspring, saying the products were indistinguishable from those of non-cloned animals.
U.S. biotech firm AquaBounty patented genetically modified Atlantic salmon is one of the most rapidly growing biotech companies in the USA. Genetically modified salmon is going to appear on the U.S. market as early as this summer.

Protein called cryptochrome is an ancient protein present in every animal species living on Earth including humans. The protein is involved in the regulation of circadian rhythms and in the navigational skills of several species including migratory birds, monarch butterflies, and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Proteins homologous to cryptochrome are expressed also in bacteria and plants.

The exact molecular mechanism of animals’ navigational abilities still remains a mystery. Recent study published in Nature Communications showed that genetically modified flies lacking their light-sensitive protein cryptochrome lose their sense of magnetic field. Interestingly, replacing the protein with human homologous protein restored the ability. Although humans express cryptochrome in their eyes, no conclusive evidence exists that humans can sense the Earth’s magnetic field.

“I would be very surprised if we don’t have this [magnetic] sense… the issue is to figure out how we use it”- sais Steven Reppert, University of Massachusetts Medical School who has been studying the roles of this protein for a number of years.

“We developed a system to study the real mechanism of magnetosensing in fruit flies… we can put these proteins from other animals [including humans] into the fly and ask, ‘do these proteins in their different forms actually function as magnetoreceptors?’,” said Dr Reppert. “I would be very surprised if we don’t have this sense; it’s used in a variety of other animals. I think that the issue is to figure out how we use it. I think one of the things that put people off accepting the reality of human magnetoreception 20 years ago was the lack of an obvious receptor,” he told BBC News.

Some people may feel the magnetic waves better than the other. It is conceivable that people with extrasensory abilities can decode electromagnetic signals emitted by neurons of other people and read others’ minds.

Even though Charles Darvin titled his famous book ‘The Origin of Species’, he considered the mechanism of new species’ origin a great mystery. Even now, one of the greatest mysteries of biology is how two groups of animals become genetically incompatible. It is possible to imagine that two groups of animals become separated in space and lose the ability to breed with each other for a long time, gradually adapt to different environmental factors until they lose physical ability to mate even living at the same territory. Development of new species without physical isolation is much more difficult to explain because of free exchange of genetic information between individuals. Even more difficult to comprehend is the fact that changing only one gene may be sufficient to create new biological species.

A gene called Prdm6 was found long time ago as a gene involved in recombination, the process of crossing chromosomes and exchanging DNA regions between paternal and maternal chromosomes in the gonads. The process takes place only during maturation of reproductive cells – spermatozoids and oocytes. The DNA shuffling is the reason why each organism is unique. So far, DNA recombination was not associated with the creation of new species. Scientists found that the protein Prdm6 has several so-called Zn-fingers that are encoded by short DNA repeats called satellite DNA. As satellite DNA is located in hot-spots of DNA recombination, it is frequently mutated and repaired. As the result, Prdm6 protein gets more or less repeats of its Zn-fingers. It appears that the chromosomes that have different variants of the gene cannot properly pair and exchange genetic information during gametogenesis. All animal species have homologous Prdm6 genes. Certain lines of laboratory mice that express different variants of Prdm6 protein cannot produce fertile offspring. Scientists found that different populations of humans also produce Prdm6 proteins with different number of Zn-fingers. It is conceivable that people with certain variants of Prdm6 proteins may not produce fertile children and may develop into a new human species. This process will require selective pressure, either natural or artificial, and many years to develop true new Homo species.

Everyone takes it as a fact that plants start producing leaves in the spring. What was not known is the molecular mechanism of the phenomenon. To establish the genetic relationship between increased temperature and faster growth, scientists from the U.S. and the UK combined their efforts and have been able to find the genes involved in the process.

Researchers started with the assumption that the warming should affect production of a plant growth hormone auxin. Previous genetic studies showed that inactivation of transcription factor PIF4 causes growth arrest of the plants. Researches managed to tie PIF4, auxin, and the phenomenon of enhanced plant growth. It turned out that transcription factor PIF4 is activated by heat and enhances the synthesis of auxin, which in turn stimulates the growth. It was found also that production of PIF4 transcription factor increases only after prolonged exposure to heat.

The purpose of the gene PIF4 is not clear. It probably serves as a sensor of seasonal changes and tells plant when to grow or shed leaves. Normally, it starts working with the arrival of spring, when the temperature rises. Scientists hope that new genetically modified plants will soon be created that can grow leaves and start biosynthesis earlier in the spring to yield more crops. These experiments will be able to change farming practices.

This knowledge will enable scientists to create more productive domestic plants and counteract the negative effects of global warming.

Scientists from the Shanghai University of Neuroscience discovered a gene GluR4 that increases the interactions between neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex and multiplies electric signals created in the area. It appears that the expression level of the gene is associated with social status of individual mice.

In order to confirm the theory, the scientists crated transgenic mice that express high level of GluR4 gene in neurons of these regions of the cortex and compared them with the mice of original strain. In order to determine which of the two mouse lines is higher in the hierarchical ladder, scientists conducted a simple test.They allowed the mice of these two strains to meet in a narrow passage way leading to food and looked what mice could grab more food. The results of the experiments confidently showed that mice with over-expressed GluR4 protein reached the food much faster. After a more detailed analysis of brain tissue, the researchers noticed also that the cells of the medial prefrontal cortex of the mutant mice have a higher ability to transmit the signals.

In addition, the opposite effect was achieved after mice were transfected with the gene R4Ct, which suppresses the transmission of neural signals. These mice became less successful in reaching the food.

If one looks at this finding from human perspective, it becomes clear that our leadership capabilities depend, in part, on the expression level of the gene. Would it be useful to screen people for the level of expression of this gene before offering them jobs that require leadership abilities?