Featured Image Credit: DOMINIK PAQUET, THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, USA via The Scientist
Anyone remember the children’s book “The Rainbow Fish?”
The good news: This is no longer the stuff of our dreams. Scientists have created Skinbow, a genetically modified zebra fish with all the colors of the rainbow.
And it’s not just a pretty face. The techni-colored rainbow fish serves a pretty cool purpose: to explore the coy process of tissue regeneration.
Tissue regeneration is one of the most interesting and elusive processes in biology and there are many different types to be explored. But since scientists haven’t been able to visualize what the cells are doing, they have reached a roadblock in their research.
Ken Poss, a professor of cell biology at Duke University, and his lab decided to say, “Screw you” to this roadblock and find their own way.
The past several years have been spent creating Skinbow. The scientists genetically modified this mutant zebrafish by coding markers into the DNA of its skin cells. Each of Skinbow’s color markers can be displayed in red, green, or blue fluorescence.
There are a hundred copies of these genes per skin cell, more or less. Since each of these cells, made up of hundred of genes, has three options for color, when these genes combine the total number of colors each cell can present is likely in the thousands.
Using modern imaging equipment, Dr. Poss’ team can distinguish around 70 of these. If you want to know more, the design of this system was led by postdoctoral researcher Chen-Hui Chen and is published in Developmental Cell.
“Each cell has an overall color based on the combination of color choices expressed. The color of that cell is then permanent. That’s the basis for how this line allows us to study regeneration.” Explained Dr. Poss.
Visualizing the colors of the “rainbow fish” lets the scientists visualize the healing process on a cellular level. They can implement experiments, such as scraping cells off the fin of the zebrafish, to better understand tissue regeneration. During the healing process, as tissues regenerate, color patterns will develop from a single cell.
“One thing we weren’t expecting is that within a few hours of injury, cells that are spared acquire some mobility on the surface,” Poss said. “They also expand in size, some doubling. Then there’s a quick wave of replacement—you can see new cells emerging from the layer underneath.”
Zebrafish have been used a a model organism in many studies, but they are perfect for studying tissue regeneration – they can regrow entire limbs or even patch up human injured hearts or spinal cords. The technology behind Skinbow could potentially lead to help for other species – including our own.
By using this technology as a model to visualize how tissue responds, in theory, we could see how human tissue reacts to treatments and medications that aim to speed up the healing process.
According to Dr. Poss, it will come down to the right genetic tools and a way to image the tissue over time.
We know we wouldn’t mind regenerating purple hair. If only that’s how it worked.
Read more from our source: GIZMODO