U researchers spend a fair amount of time studying mice.
In 2006, Mario Capecchi, a professor of human genetics at the U and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, published his research, which introduced a new technology that would allow scientists to mutate a mouse’s entire genome sequence.
The research, though, was only done on mice that lived in cages, and soon the question of how the mice would survive gene mutation in their natural environment came up. Wayne Potts, a professor of biology, and James Ruff, a postdoctoral fellow in biology, worked on a research team to explore the issue and show what would happen if genetically modified mice were set free in a natural environment.
“To truly understand the consequences [of] gene mutations, we need to look at organisms in their natural environment, where they face the challenges that have shaped their evolution,” Ruff said.
Their results somewhat clashed with Capecchi’s experiment, which found that there was “no effect” on lab mice that were genetically altered before birth. The genes mutated were Hoxa1 and Hoxb1, which are in charge of nerve reactions and breathing ability. Mutating one of these genes was thought to be okay because other genes would take its place and the mouse could still survive.
But Potts and Ruff found that the genetic variations do affect a mouse if released into the wild.
“The mice told us that this genetic manipulation decreases their abilities to acquire territories and reproduce in nature — observations that were not visible while assessing mice in standard caged laboratory settings,” Ruff said.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. A number of U students conducted the research, three of whom were undergraduates. The research was published in Genetics, an academic journal, on Oct. 7.
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