NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
The world’s first
GM reptiles
Michael Le Page
THE CRISPR genome-editing tool
has been used to make the world’s
first genetically modified reptiles:
four albino lizards.
Our ability to tweak the
genomes of animals like mice and
zebrafish has been hugely useful
for medical research. But some
conditions are hard to study in
existing lab animals.
For instance, people with
albinism often have vision
problems because the genetic
variants responsible affect the
DOUG MENKE
Curiosity rover
enters possible
Mars life zone
NASA’s Curiosity rover is starting to
explore what may be the best region
on Mars for life to flourish now or in
the past, according to an analysis of
the kind of Martian clays it will study.
Patricia Craig at the Planetary
Science Institute in Arizona and her
colleagues placed bacteria in test
tubes with clay minerals of the type
found on the Martian surface. They
development of the fovea, the
part of the retina that provides
the most detailed picture of the
world. Mice and zebrafish don’t
have foveae – but lizards do.
Until now, however, there has
been no way to deliberately
change the genome of any reptile
because the techniques used in
other animals don’t work as well
for some egg-laying animals.
Douglas Menke at the
University of Georgia and his
team anaesthetised female brown
anole lizards (Anolis sagrei) and
injected the CRISPR genome-
then left the microbes for 195 days
to see if they would survive.
The results were encouraging,
says Craig: “We didn’t kill them!”
In fact, the microbes continued to
produce methane when fed on only
Mars-like clays, indicating that they
were drawing nutrients from the
material. Methane gas has been
repeatedly detected in the Martian
atmosphere, and some researchers
have suggested that microbes like
these could be producing it.
But the changes in the test tubes
were difficult to spot, with both X-ray
and infrared examinations showing
editing machinery directly into
eggs developing in their ovaries.
The trick is to inject each egg
at the right stage of development.
If done too soon, it doesn’t work
well; too late and there is a high
risk of damaging important
structures inside the egg.
The team used the technique to
create albino lizards because their
lack of pigmentation makes it
easy to tell when the gene editing
has worked. In addition, team
member Jim Lauderdale hopes to
use gene-edited lizards to study
how albinism affects the fovea.
In the team’s initial study, nine
out of 146 eggs that were injected
were successfully gene edited
(bioRxiv, doi.org/10.1101/591446).
A brown anole lizard and one of
the gene-edited albino variants
no differences in the clay. Only with a
scanning electron microscope (SEM),
which shines a beam of electrons on
a sample and creates a picture from
its reflection, could any changes
be detected. The SEM showed
differences in the spacing of the clay
mineral layers, as well as imaging
what seemed to be a living microbe.
Curiosity has just entered a region
of Mars that is likely to have more
“Even after 195 days, the
microbes continued to
produce methane when
fed on only Mars-like clays”
The team says it has managed
to improve this efficiency rate.
“This is really a big
achievement,” says Maria
Antonietta Tosches of the
Max Planck Institute for Brain
Research in Germany, who has
tried to modify another species
of lizard. “I know how hard it is.”
Anole lizards are the subject of
many evolution studies, as they
rapidly adapt to new niches and
have diversified into hundreds
of species. Menke hopes to use
gene editing to learn more about
how they have done this.
The team thinks its technique
will succeed in any kind of reptile,
from lizards and turtles to snakes
and crocodiles. “I would certainly
think that the same approach
would work,” says Menke.
He believes it might also be
possible to adapt the method to
birds, which are – evolutionarily
speaking – a type of reptile.
Many teams have created
genetically modified birds,
including CRISPR-edited ones,
but the techniques used are
complex and difficult.
“The process is laborious,” says
Tosches. She isn’t sure the new
method will work in birds. “We will
have to wait and see,” she says.
It may also be difficult to get the
timing right for reptile and bird
species that only lay eggs once
a year. The brown anole lays one
egg a week, meaning it always has
eggs developing in its ovaries. ■
clays than the rest of the surface, so
these results may mean we are rolling
into the best place to spot life there.
Unfortunately, SEMs are too large to
fit on a rover, so even if Curiosity sees
signs of life it probably won’t be able
to tell what they are.
The methane in Mars’s atmosphere
could be produced by microbes or by
geological processes like outgassing
from ice deposits, and without an SEM
it will be nearly impossible to tell its
true origin, says Craig. She presented
the results of the experiment at
the Lunar and Planetary Science
Conference in Texas. Leah Crane ■
13 April 2019 | NewScientist | 15