- 期刊
- OpenAccess
Transgenic Fish: Researches and Applications
基因轉殖魚的研究及應用
摘要
基因轉殖技術可以用來改良經濟水產動物的品種。至今報告中最成功的例子就是具有抗凍能力的轉殖鮭魚以及成長快速的魚、貝類。因此，可以證實分子生物及基因轉殖技術應用在水產養殖上是實際可行的。然而，這些基因轉殖的食用魚品系仍未能如期上市，主要是食品安全及生態影響這兩個重要的議題。可是，另一方面，近幾年來，有兩種小型淡水魚，像斑馬魚(Danio rerio)及稻田魚(Oryzias latipes)卻變成了十分新穎的研究用之模式動物。因為魚是最低等的脊椎動物，又擁有許多其他模式種類所沒有的優點：例如，基因轉殖簡易，可在授精卵內直接觀察轉殖基因的表現，可隨意讓某一特殊蛋白不被轉譯以及可讓減數分裂前的生殖細胞產生突變等，這些都使得模式魚被廣用來分析脊椎動物基因功能，重要調控序列及途徑的原因。再者，要建立某一特殊基因帶有螢光蛋白標誌的轉殖魚品系相當快速，又因胚胎是透明，可以直接觀察該基因在發育時的動態表現，因而成為研究胚胎發育生物學的最佳利器。值得注意的是有些斑馬魚突變種的特徵與入類某些疾病的症狀十分類似，都是同源的基因遭到突變致成，因此基因轉殖魚也可以用來研究人類疾病的機制，基因治療以及藥物篩選之用。在應用方面，轉殖魚品系也可用來偵測環境污染物的生物感應器。另外，最有趣的莫非是可以用來創造在夜間能產生各種色彩螢光的觀賞魚品系，增加熱帶魚的附加價值。總之，基因轉殖模式魚擁有這些特點現已成為生物醫學研究及應用的新材料。
並列摘要
The gene transfer technology applied in commercially important aquatic animals is to enhance the quality or to improve the genetic characters of aquaculture broodstocks. The anti-freezing transgenic salmon and the fast-growing transgenic fish and shellfish have been reported and consider as the most successful cases until now. It highlights a new access to the modification of food fish and shellfish. However, the issues of genetically modified organisms (GMO) are still controversial. Food safety and ecological impacts are the major concerns before GMO are put in the market. For research purpose, zebrafish (Danio rerio) and medaka (Oryzias latipes) have become the most used model organisms since they are primitive vertebrates yet have many advantages over the other. Transgenes is, in vivo transient assay, mutagenesis and knock-down translation of zebrafish embryos are the most effective ways to map expression profiles, to dissect the regulatory cis-elements and to identify the gene functions of vertebral genes. Germ-line transmission is much more easily accessible. Transgenic line carrying a specific tissue tagged by green fluorescent protein (GFP) live marker become a powerful tool to study developmental biology because they enable to recapitulate the expression of endogenous genes. Furthermore, the transparent embryos are available for observation and tracing dynamic expression of a specific gene during embryogenesis. Transgenic fish can also serve as a simple animal model to study human diseases because some zebrafish mutants can faithfully phenocopy human diseases. For application purpose, GFP lines are potentially applied as biosensors for detecting the environmental pollutants. Interestingly, new pet fish species that glows colorfully in the dark can be achieved by transferring fluorescent protein genes. These advantages make the transgenic model fish apt for modern biomedical researches and applications as new materials.