Genetically Modified Glowing Beagle

Tegon is her name and glowing is her game. Tegon is not the only animal that has been genetically modified to glow; she joins a red fluorescent puppy named Ruppy and Mr. Green Genes the cat. Tegon is a beagle and was created by Byeong Chun Lee, the director of the Seoul National University Hospital for Animals in Korea, and his colleagues in 2009. Lee told Discovery news, “The entire body of the dog glows. One can witness a slightly yellower change in the color of the dog’s skin, but to the naked eye, fluorescence cannot be seen without the presence of UV light and goggles.”

There was a five step process that had to happen in order to produce Tegon:

The first step was to insert a piece of DNA that controls the way a green fluorescent gene is expressed into dog cells. After modifying the dog cells they injected them into the DNA of an immature female reproductive cell before it’s fertilization. Step three consisted of producing an embryo using a technique called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. This embryo was implanted into a mother beagle. Tegon was born 60 days later with the ability to glow under UV light when given a certain antibiotic called doxycycline. The study started in 2009, but the details of the study was just released last month. Now Tegon is grown and with pups of her own. It hasn’t been made clear whether her pups inherited her glowing talents.

Reflections

My first reaction to this article was "Wow its impossible, how is a dog able to glow?". However, i was won over and i am impressed by the improvements of genetically modified things. I certainly hope that other animals can also be genetically modified to glow as it would be fun to see them glow in the dark. Wouldnt it be cool if humans could glow too?