Continuing the scientific theme of adding fluorescent proteins to everything that moves, this time spiders found themselves at the pointy end of the CRISPR-Cas9 injection needle. In a study by researchers at the University of Bayreuth, common house spiders (Parasteatoda tepidariorum) had a gene inserted for a red fluorescent protein in addition to having an existing gene for eye development disabled. This was the first time that spiders have been subjected to this kind of gene-editing study, mostly due to how fiddly they are to handle as well as their genome duplication characteristics.
In the research paper in Angewandte Chemie the methods and results are detailed, with the knock-out approach of the sine oculis (C1) gene being tried first as a proof of concept. The CRISPR solution was injected into the ovaries of female spiders, whose offspring then carried the mutation. With clear deficiencies in eye development observable in this offspring, the researchers moved on to adding the red fluorescent protein gene with another CRISPR solution, which targets the major ampullate gland where the silk is produced.
Ultimately, this research serves to demonstrate that it is possible to not only study spiders in more depth these days using tools like CRISPR-Cas9, but also that it is possible to customize and study spider silk production.
Now we just need silkworms to produce precolored silk.
Even better make them produce spider silk.
This is especially creepy after having read Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time
or read/seen anything to do with spiderman…
This reminds me, whatever happened to the work in making spider silk thread mass-produceable?
I thought we were on our way to making spider silk shirts and ultralight and strong ropes but I haven’t seen that getting talked about.
I remember seeing news about it in the mid 2000s. It could’ve been a cool new type of fabric. Maybe the scientists gave up?
Direct spider silk production was never going to be commercially viable.
Other experiments like the spidergoat project struggled to find a balance between production costs and a demand that really only went so far as “ooh that would be cool” internet comments.
Its hard to compete with the likes of UHMWPE and other such synthetics.
It’s scheduled to be in production as soon as they finish commercial fusion reactors…
Those spiders are not going to be happy when they don’t catch any flies due to their webs being easily spotted.
Only if we edit fireflies to glow UV light…
Why disable their eye development?
Inferring from the context of the article, I would guess that it’s because missing/malformed eyes were easy to detect. This allowed them to be confident that the gene editing system was working before they tried something that might fail for other reasons.
What could possibly go wrong with that…
I remember a time when gene editing was deemed highly dangerous to the human race and nature at large, and therefore confined to high security bio labs. Now that we’re routinely running genetic experiments on humans in the wild, the fear seems to have vanished. Or is it just the prospects of making truckloads of money wiping the concerns away?
I think the risk of unexpected outcomes of GMO spreading in our environment is present more than ever and it should be discussed throughout society, not just the academic part.
I know it’s probably too late as everybody thinks that we have finally understood genetic engineering. However, the part that we don’t understand still outweighs the part that we do understand by some orders of magnitude, especially the systemic balance of species in nature.
As a well aged vintage person I can sleep relatively well but i do worry for the generations to come.