Colossal confusion startup Biosciences has mice with the editing of genes that have gigantic functions, creating what the company calls a colossal woolen mouse. Laboratory mice, which have been modified as fur shaggy and gold coats, are a demonstration of gene editions that the company hopes to make on a much larger scale, modifying Asian elephants to make them more like their woolen ancestors.
The genomes of colossal mice were edited in many points to change the fur, so it was longer, fluffy and more golden than in normal laboratory mice. Some mice also had the editions of the gene involved in the metabolism of fatty acids, which should change the way animals store fat – another key difference between mammoths and Asian elephants. In many cohorts of mice with edited genes, one set had editions in seven different genes, most of which were involved in the type of hair and one of them controlled fat metabolism.
Scientists understand well how changes in mouse genetics affect their fur, so most of the editions selected by colossal scientists recreated these changes, not using the giant DNA as a model. “We just didn’t push mammoth genes into the mouse. There is 200 million years of evolutionary discrepancy between them, and this would not make any sense “from a scientific and ethical perspective, says Beth Shapiro, scientific director at Colossal.
In addition to genes already well understood from mouse research, colossible scientists also brought historic mammoth genomes to identify three genes that seemed significant for adaptation of mammoths to frigid. Two of these genes affected the type of hair, and the third affected fat metabolism. Then scientists tried various combinations of editing in various mouse groups, producing some mice with fluffy fur, some with curly mustaches, and some with fluffy golden coats. The experiments were described in a reprinant article that was not reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
“These mice are extremely cute,” says Colossal co -founder and general director of Ben Lamm. “They are much prettier than we expected, which probably means that our mammoths of the first generation will also be equally charming.” Lamm shared a photo of woolen mice in its habitat in colossal offices, in the company of a woolen toy and living on a snowy background. He added that the company is not going to grow or sell woolen mice, he added CEO.
The colossal experiment raises questions about which Edyta Genów qualify for the creation of the Mouse of the Asian elephant-so gigantic, says Vincent Lynch, a development biologist at the University of Buffalo, Fresh York, who was not involved in a colossal study. Colossal mice are more fluffy and fluffy than most laboratory mice, it’s certainly, but these features still appear in other mice. Or, in other words, whether Chow Chow is more gigantic than Chihuahua, is it just a much more fluffy dog?
Where you land on this spectrum, it is partly a matter of semantics and partly one of the genetics. Colossal refers to would -be mammoths as “cold -resistant elephants”, with the basic biological features of a mammoth, but genetically almost identical to the Asian elephant. Lamm claims that the company aims at about 85 genes to create elephants resistant to frigid and experimented with edition of 25 of these genes. He says that mice with gene editing will be useful for testing less apparent features, such as fat metabolism.