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A glowing bunny sounds like a creature from Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic-laced song, “White Rabbit,” but real fluorescent rabbits were recently born at the University of Istanbul, Turkey. 4 _3 Q3 j# ]5 }公仔箱論壇Rabbits join a growing list of fluorescent fur-bearers. Genetic engineers have created glowing dogs, cats, pigs and mice by inserting a gene from a jellyfish into the mammals’ DNA. The jellyfish gene codes for a protein that emits light when exposed to ultraviolet light." d0 z* c7 s4 ?9 h
The jellyfish gene adds an obvious physical change to an engineered animal. This allows scientists to know that genetic material successfully transferred into a new organism.公仔箱論壇& h. ^. f0 \! s0 a; {7 {
For example, when Mayo Clinic researchers genetically engineered cats to carry a protein that defends the animals from infection by the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV, the cat version of HIV), the scientists added the fluorescent gene along with the FIV-resistance gene. That way they knew that any cat that fluoresced also carried protein protection against FIV, a trait that would otherwise be invisible. % {8 G$ X5 n. r; e公仔箱論壇( By Tim Wall Published August 15, 2013 Discovery News )( _6 N$ g9 B `