Castration starts huge Biosciences has gene-edited mice that have similar features to mammoths, creating what the company calls a giant wool mouse. The lab’s mice, modified to a furry fur and golden coat, are a demonstration of the gene editing the company hopes to perform on a larger scale, i.e. Modify Asian Elephant More like their wool mammoth ancestors.
The genome of giant mice was edited at multiple points to change their fur, thus longer, curly and golden than normal laboratory mice. Some mice have also edited genes involved in fatty acid metabolism, which should change the way animals store fat, another key difference between mammoths and Asian elephants. Among multiple gene-edited mice, a group was edited in seven different genes, most of which were involved in hair types, and one controlled fat metabolism.
Scientists have already had a good understanding of changes in mouse genetics, so most of the editors chosen by the giant scientists have recreated these changes instead of using mammoth DNA as a model. “We’re not only pushing the mammoth gene into mice,” said Beth Shapiro, chief scientific officer of Colossal.
In addition to genes that have been well understood from mouse studies, the giant scientists have mined the ancient mammoth genome to identify three genes, which seem important for mammoth adaptation to cold. Two of these genes affect hair type, while the third one affects fat metabolism. The researchers then tried different editing combinations of each group of mice, producing some mice with curly fur, some with curly mice and some with fluffy golden coats. These experiments are described in preprint papers that have not been peer-reviewed or published in scientific journals.
“These mice are so cute,” said Ben Lamm, giant co-founder and CEO. “They are much cuter than we expected, which could mean our first generation mammoth will be just as adorable.” Lamm shared photos of the wool rat in the huge office, accompanied by a wool mammoth toy and living against a snowy background. The CEO added that the company had no intention of breeding or selling wool mice.
Vincent Lynch, a developmental biologist at the University of Buffalo, NYU, said huge experiments have questions about which gene editing is qualified to make mice or Asian elephants, and developmental biologist Vincent Lynch at the University of Buffalo, NY., is not involved in the huge research. Huge mice are fluffy and more fragile than most laboratory mice, but that’s for sure, but these traits still appear naturally in other mice. Or, in other words, is it more like mammoth meat than chihuahua, or is it just a fluffy dog?
Where you log into that range is partly a semantic problem, partly a genetic problem. The huge mammoth looks like a “hardy-resistant elephant”. Its huge mammoth has the core biological characteristics of the mammoth, but is genetically almost the same as the Asian elephant. Lamm said the company aims to create cold elephants about 85 genes and has tried to edit 25 of them. Gene-edited mice will help test visible features such as fat metabolism, such as fat metabolism.
