Dec 24, 2013 08:17 AM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Piglets in China aren't getting green with envy. They are just genetically 'green-tinted'

Researchers say that at least 10 piglets in China have been genetically altered to glow with a green tint in the dark.

The pigs' glow is a result of a technique developed by researchers at University of Hawai'i at Mānoa's John A. Burns School of Medicine. Their method quadruples the success rate of transfer of plasmids from jellyfish DNA into the embryo of the pig. The plasmid- independent deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that has the ability to replicate - carried fluorescent protein from jellyfish DNA.

Now, Zhenfang Wu and Zicong Li of the South China Agricultural University have used the method to produce transgenic pigs.

Their greenish glow is only an indicator that shows that the technique is working and that the foreign genetic material is present in the pigs' natural make-up. The protein won't harm the pigs.

"It's just a marker to show that we can take a gene that was not originally present in the animal and now exists in it," explains Dr. Stefan Moisyadi, a veteran bioscientist with the  UH medical school's Institute for Biogenesis Research (IBR).

The ultimate goal of the research is to find an efficient and cheap way of getting a beneficial gene into humans. These genes could help treat many genetic disorders.

"[For] patients who suffer from hemophilia and they need the blood-clotting enzymes in their blood, we can make those enzymes a lot cheaper in animals rather than a factory that will cost millions of dollars to build," Dr. Moisyadi said in a news release.

Their research is published in the journal Biology of Reproduction.

Check a video of the pigs, here. 

Glowing Green in dark 

Green pigs have been around for quite some time now. Taiwan had bred piglets that were completely green in color in 2000.

In 2008, Chinese researchers cloned pigs that could pass the fluorescent green trait to its young.

Now, we have fluorescent green proteins injected into sheep, rabbit, monkeys, cats and dogs as well.

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