"Firefly" Cell-transplanted axolotls being made for the pet trade?

[GeorgeAquatics]

These photos started a lively debate in an axolotl related group on Facebook. These animals were made by doing cell transplants on embryos (sort of artificial mosaics or chimeras, I suppose) by https://www.facebook.com/strohlsherps/ and are apparently now being marketed as "Fireflies".

What do you think, is it ethical to do transplants on embryos (or on living animals), with the hope of one day regrowing human limbs?

What do you think about the possibility of them being introduced to the pet trade, like GFPs (and now also NFP/RFPs) or of laboratory animals being sold as pets, after the experiment is over?

Personally, I think the transplants on living animals are a bit grotesque, but as long as it's done using anesthetic, and for the purpose of research, it may be justified.

Cell transplants done on embryos (like the ones pictured) are totally fine in my view, since the embryo apparently doesn't have the ability to feel any pain.

From what I understand, the person who created these did so for research and education purposes, but I don't know how ethical it may be to sell them as pets afterwards, especially for hundreds of dollars each, since it seems like it might encourage experimentation for the purpose of creating novelty or "designer" pets.

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(Update)

At first, I was under the impression that these had been made for research purposes, and were only now being sold as pets, having served their purpose in the lab, but I wondered how laboratory test subjects could have ended up in the hands of a professional reptile and amphibian breeder, if they hadn't been intended for selling.

I joked that maybe a high school science teacher had decided to go "Breaking Bad" on the side.


It seems like the "Breaking Axolotl" theory might not be so far fetched after all. It looks like Strohl is in fact some sort of science teacher.

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"Strohl's Herptiles Most mosaics are random "accidents". This one is the result of some very careful embryonic cell manipulation.
Like · Reply · 3 · June 10 at 11:22pm
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Elizabeth Wilson Ok, so you are saying this mosaic was created artificially in a lab?
Like · Reply · 1 · June 12 at 11:49am
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Rodrigo Portillo interesting
Like · Reply · June 12 at 2:40pm
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Strohl's Herptiles Elizabeth Wilson Yes. A basement, actually.

I have seven natural mosaics, and a symmetrical chimera, as well.
Like · Reply · June 12 at 3:13pm
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Rodrigo Portillo Strohl's Herptiles that's really cool, how exactly do you do this
Like · Reply · June 12 at 3:18pm
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Strohl's Herptiles Its a process I worked out with my students and a lot of research. You have to produce eggs from two genetic lines at exactly the same time (or carefully manipulate their development with temperature regulation) to get embryos at exactly the same stage of development, then take cells or even whole body regions from one early-stage embryo and graft it to another before the cells become too specialized. Of course, there's a lot more to it.

Axolotls' extraordinary immune system, which accepts cells from other genetic lines without rejection, and ability to heal without scarring makes this possible..."
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I'm still not positive on whether or not these were made purely to be sold as pets, or if they served some sort of educational purpose.

I'm not intending this to be any sort of moral judgment, by the way. The Facebook group that I mentioned had all sorts of wild statements popping up, like: "This is playing God!" and "Next they'll want to make a human baby with one black leg and one white leg!".

Personally, I feel that since there is obviously a market for novelty pets, it's much better in my view that people have access to unique animals such as GFP and NFP/RFP axolotls and frogs, rather than ones that have been dyed or injected. (Although I'm still not sure how I feel a bout the "Fireflies").

I just thought it was interesting and worth sharing.

What are your thoughts?
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These sorts of transplants are also done with living axolotls, (for those who aren't aware) by laboratories around the world, to study limb transplantation and regeneration, for the purpose of (hopefully) one day being able to regenerate human limbs.

I have no problem with transplantation for the purpose of research, personally, as long as the animals are treated humanely, given anesthetics during surgery and so on.

What are your thoughts?

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--- (Quote from an article on transplantation using living axolotls) ---

"Take One Axolotl:

The researchers first added a section of DNA to an axolotl so that it expressed green fluorescent proteins throughout its body. Then they transplanted cells from this animal into a normal axolotl, whose leg they amputated....

As the axolotl regrew its limb, the team tracked the fluorescent proteins to see what happened to each cell type. Despite going through a blastema stage and dividing, the muscle cells did not turn into any other types of tissue. The same was true of Schwann cells, which form a protective sheath around nerve cells. However, other tissue types were more flexible, with dermis cells also able to differentiate into cartilage tissue, but not muscle...

The team also grafted cartilage and Schwann cells from the tip of a limb onto the upper arm of an amputated axolotl. They found that the cartilage cells moved to their old location in the newly-formed replacement limb, whereas the Schwann cells were more widely distributed.

Previous research had shown that blastema from different tissues behaves distinctly despite the uniform appearance of the cells, says Jeremy Brockes, a cellular and molecular biologist at University College, London. But those experiments were not able to track the blastema cells in such detail, he adds. They also relied on using cell in cultures, rather than directly grafting them from one animal to another, which may have interfered with the cells' behaviour, Tanaka suggests.

Researchers will need to learn much more about which molecular signals control blastema cells if they want to adapt the salamander's tricks for therapies in humans, says Tanaka. For example, using the fluorescent protein marker, she hopes to track when particular genes are activated during salamander regeneration, and she is optimistic that regenerating mammal limbs "may eventually be possible".

It is important to discover how molecular signals tell a cell that its neighbouring tissue has been cut off, and what triggers the regeneration process, says Brockes. Following cells during regeneration is a start, but "there's an enormous amount to learn", he says...."

Salamander cells remember their origins in limb regeneration : Nature News

 

[Joep]

thxs 4 posting!!
these can be a good thing!!ambassadors for the hobby!!
sadly,they are illegal in europe,,,invasive??do we eat them??
gmo/gfp is only allowed with a permitt,so now all catle eat gmo-soya!! here!!
ps
the used yellyfish genes!!,firefly also??

 

[GeorgeAquatics]

Here in Canada, it's also illegal to import GMO without special permission, but there are in fact transgenic (GFP/NFP/RFP) axolotls and also Xenopus (African Clawed Frogs) here, since it's not illegal to make them, just illegal to import them, from what I understand, and once they're here, they're here.

I think that the strict laws are in the event that they were ever able to escape into the wild and breed with the local wildlife, but since I don't think an axolotl would never make it 100 feet from the tank, it couldn't escape unless someone deliberately released it, and even if it did, a neotenic salamander wouldn't be able to breed with a terrestrial salamander, so I think there's essentially no risk of that happening.

"Firefly" is just the name that these are being marketed with now, by the science teacher / breeder who has been making them. Transgenic GFP and NFP axolotls were by splicing axolotl DNA with jellyfish DNA, I believe.

 

[GeorgeAquatics]

Update from Lloyd Strohl on the subject of the "Fireflies". (Note: I have spoken to him, and he says that this is directed towards people in various Facebook groups who were being rude and spreading misinformation, nothing to do with the article I wrote here, and that he has no problem with this).


"I offer the following information regarding the infamous “firefly axolotls”.
Please note that I will not reveal details of the complete process involved, any more than I will explain how to make fluorescent human babies (easy, but very expensive), make dinosaurs from emus (very hard and time-consuming, but relatively cheap with the discovery and implementation of CRISPR-Cas9), or destroy every malaria-transmitting Anopheles mosquito on Earth (moderately easy, moderately expensive, and very tempting) because irresponsible people with a little knowledge are dangerous.

First; There are ONLY SIX FIREFLIES. There are three with the GFP tails, and three with normal, non-GFP tails.

Second; Why did I make them?

The short answer is; I am doing a preliminary investigation into the distribution and activation of melanocytes in leucistic axolotls and, in particular, in mosaics. The long answer follows:

I started this investigation after observing several things that seem to contradict accepted wisdom regarding the effect of the leucistic gene in axies, as well as the cause of mosaicism in these animals. The first conundrum resulted when I bred a homozygous melanistic wild-type animal to a golden albino, which should invariably produce only black/spotted offspring. Two of the offspring were not black, but appeared to be leucistic. As these two grew, broad patches of dark pigment became obvious, and I realized they were actually mosaic. The problem with this is; If the conventional wisdom that mosaicism is due to the fusion of two eggs to form one individual (as has been proven conclusively to occur in many organisms, including humans), then these beautiful little mosaics are impossible. Given that the leucistic gene is recessive to the melanistic or wild-type, there could have been no leucistic eggs to join with the black ones, since the mother did not carry that gene.

I began reading everything I could find regarding the genetics of axolotls. This turned out to be a short and pretty unproductive read, failing to answer any questions regarding mosaicism in axies, because there simply hasn’t been any significant research into this. Dr Malikinski, former head of the IU axolotl colony (and original source of my first two animals) directed me to Dr. Randal Voss, geneticist and director of the colony at the University of Kentucky. Randal was kind enough to provide some information, and suggested that my particular mosaics, at least, may be the result of methylation early in development.

During this time I was fortunate to find several more mosaics among my animals, varying tremendously in appearance and distribution of melanocytes. I noted that melanocytes were clearly visible (under a microscope) in the white patches of these animals, but that the melanocytes failed to grow the branching dendrites typical of these cells in darker patches, and most eventually died or failed to produce any melanin to reveal their presence. Unfortunately, I could not draw any realistic conclusions as to the cause of this, since I could not know exactly what genes had been methylated. For example; were the white patches really leucistic, or albino?

According to common wisdom on the subject, the leucistic axolotls produce melanocytes along the neural crest, as all vertebrates do early in development, but these cells fail to migrate away from the neural crest and spread over the body. If this is true, then how did melanocytes end up in the white patches of my mosaics, and what killed them or shut them off?

One of my animals, in particular, piqued my curiosity. He first caught my eye because the GFP gene is expressed only on his right side – not on the left. By definition, then, he is a mosaic, and what many American axolotl enthusiasts call a “chimera”. He appeared, otherwise, to be a normal wild-type. A he grew, however, small pale patches became noticeable and grew into distinct white spots. Within these spots were melanocytes that were pale and nearly free of dendrites.

I decided that the only way to continue my investigation was to produce mosaic animals synthetically. This way, I could be certain of the genetic components of the cells in each patch of tissue.

I had seen pictures of the black-headed, white-bodied axolotls produced by a team of Japanese researchers back in the ‘90s, and had read research in which axolotl embryos had been fused to produce chimeric animals for a study of a lethal version of the gene that controls myofibrillogenesis.

Using these studies and others on various species of salamanders and frogs as a guide, I set to work to produce chimeras. The university studies had succeeded in producing chimeras, but at very low rates of success. George Malakinski and others cited success rates lower than 2% (ususally much lower), meaning that most fused embryos failed to fuse properly and died or had to be destroyed. While subsidized university studies could invest that sort of time and material, I could not, so I worked with small numbers of embryos, methodically testing different methods, modified ringer’s solutions, and antibiotics at different concentrations until I was confident I could do it reliably.
I will not describe the process I ultimately worked out. It is expensive and time-consuming, but I can now fuse embryos with relative ease and at a very high success rate.

The first one and his dark-tailed leucistic sibling (sharing four parents) were produced as a proof-of-concept for my investigation of the pigment distribution and activation in leucistic axolotls. Actually, the dark-tailed lucy was deliberately produced; The firefly was really just a byproduct of that process. You see, for every firefly there is also a dark-tailed lucy – the actual goal of the embryo fusion. If this investigation were being done in a university or commercial laboratory, the wild-type and melanoid embryos used as the cell donors for this investigation would have been destroyed, since they were not the focus of the investigation. I saw no reason to do that, since I knew that both the “donor” embryo and the recipient could live out their happy, healthy lives with just a little additional effort, so that’s what I did. I am keeping the original two animals (See Pic labelled "Figure A"), which are now about six months old, and the other dark-tailed lucies (See Pic labelled "Figure B") – at least until they’ve matured and fulfilled their purpose.

So, you see, the fireflies are not the goal, but a by-product of my investigations. I have sold them because I am an underpaid, overworked teacher, not a wealthy entrepreneur, and (a) cannot afford to keep them all properly and (b) need cash to buy equipment.
And yes, there will be more produced now and then as I continue my efforts.
One of my students recently told me she had read an article online regarding someone “mass-producing” firefly axolotls for the pet trade. I looked into it, and was a bit startled how far this “discussion” has gone online. The article included pics I had posted on Facebook of my animals. My personal favorite statement was that I had “gone all Breaking Bad”.

Yes, that’s right; My wife is even now piling our ill-gained axolotl cash on pallets in a storage locker because there’s just too much to launder away.

I don’t, on principle, argue with internet Trolls. I realize most of them are (a) incapable of grasping the value of evidence and logical argument, and (b) are simply trying to validate their sad, lonely lives as they sit in their mother’s basement in the cool glow of the six-year-old laptop she gave them for their 40th birthday. On the other hand, I am a teacher and academic at heart, and get very disturbed when I see misinformation spread as truth..."

--- https://www.facebook.com/lloyd.strohl.1/posts/1087705631327797