See through frogs

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing see-through frogs, letting them observe organs, blood vessels and eggs under the skin without performing dissections.
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"You can see through the skin how organs grow, how cancer starts and develops," said the lead researcher Masayuki Sumida, professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology of state-run Hiroshima University.

"You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life as you don't have to dissect it. The researcher can also observe how toxins affect bones, livers and other organs at lower costs," he told AFP.

Dissections have become increasingly controversial in much of the world, particularly in schools where animal rights activists have pressed for humane alternatives such as using computer simulations.

Sumida said his team, which announced the research last week at an academic conference, had created the first transparent four-legged creature, although some small fish are also see-through.

The researchers produced the creature from rare mutants of the Japanese brown frog, or Rena japonica, whose backs are usually ochre or brown.

Two kinds of recessive genes have been known to cause the frog to be pale.

Sumida's team crossed two frogs with recessive genes through artificial insemination and the offspring looked normal due to the presence of more powerful genes. But crossing the offspring led to a frog whose skin is transparent from the tadpole stage.

"You can see dramatic changes of organs when tadpoles mutate into frogs," said Sumida, whose team is seeking a patent.

Such frogs could theoretically exist in the wild but it is "virtually impossible" they would naturally inherit so many recessive genes, Sumida said.

The transparent frogs can also reproduce, with their offspring inheriting their parents' traits, but their grandchildren die shortly after birth.

"As they have two sets of recessive genes, something wrong must kick in and kill them," Sumida said.

While the researchers relied on artificial insemination, they said that genetic engineering could also produce transparent and even illuminating frogs.

Sumida said researchers could also inject into the transparent frogs an illuminating protein attached to a gene, which would light up the gene once it manifests -- for example, showing at what stage cancer starts.

Sumida said it would be unrealistic to apply the same method to mammals such as mice as their skin structure is different.

(Just think if scientist were to make a potion for them to see us like that, then make an antidote and make it seems like it never happened?)

 

That's kinda cool. I want to see one.

 

That looks awesome! I'd love it if we stopped dissecting! Yay for Japan! XD

I foundz a pic for j00:

Clicky for piccy!

Can't say it's the prettiest thing...

 

Damn..I thought the frogs were literally see through. :\

 

Wow, that's awesome!

 

me too.....but its cute either way! plus we could stop dissecting frogs!
even though i don't have to. at my school, we dissect pigs instead....i get to see inside of an animal i eat right after lunch....hooray.....

anyway that's really cool!

 

confusing...

 

That's a pretty interesting find. I read some more on that too after you posted this and they are actually created from Japanese types of frogs using genetic recessive genes to make them. It would be interesting if they could be used as well as computer programs which could simulate dissection and then all the animal activists might be happier, and no smelliness would be a plus too in science classes.

 

Well, I gotta say, that's interesting. Definetly a step up from having to split them open.

 

That's awesome, and way more humane... just as long as they don't reproduce...

 

Upon reading more into it, yeah they can reproduce the next generation but their offspring cannot reproduce because of just possessing the recessive genes, it is believed, so there's a lack of diversity. So as it stands, these frogs can only reproduce successfully one generation really.