Fish, I see right through you!
The transparent fish (striped danio) was born in the laboratory of Professor Leonard Zon from the Children's Hospital Boston. She "showed" scientists her brain, heart and other internal organs.
Striped danio is often used to simulate human diseases. Previously, biologists studied certain changes in the fish on its transparent embryos, but with age (after 4 weeks) the fish became opaque and the experiment stopped. To facilitate the work of researchers, Zon and his colleagues bred striped danios that remain transparent all their lives (you can see them in the video).
Traditionally, the disease is studied after the death of an animal, but such rapidly developing ailments as a cancerous tumor are better studied in real time. "This study will help us in a way to get a video instead of a photo," says Richard White, a participant in the Stem Cell Research Program at Children's Hospital Boston.
It was White who crossed two existing breeds of danio, one without reflective skin pigment and the second without black pigment, and received the first transparent fish (the remaining yellow pigment practically does not interfere), which he named Casper.
In one experiment, White and his assistants implanted a fluorescent melanoma into the abdominal cavity of a transparent fish. After that, they had the opportunity to observe its development literally cell by cell under a microscope for five days.
"Oncologists all over the world cannot understand why the tumor begins to grow," Richard says in a hospital press release. "And in one of our experiments with transparent fish, we noticed that cancer cells begin to "spread" towards the skin."
In another experiment, White managed to implant fluorescent stem cells of another fish into the bloodstream of a transparent fish, which then differentiated into blood cells of the new owner. Even after four weeks, their movements could be tracked. Such an achievement can help in the treatment of leukemia or any other disease associated with interruptions in the work of the human bone marrow.
Details can be found in the authors' article in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru08.02.2008