Mutagenesis.

[chlamydomonas]

Hello All,

Does any one know of any attempts at performing random mutagenesis on discus eggs? Ultraviolet radiation can introduce point base pair mutations that could yield some "interesting" strains, but could yield some very gross mutations as well. Mutations after all are one of the driving forces of evolution, albeit over several 100s if not 1000s of generations.

Any thoughts (this should be interesting).

Cheers,

Chlamy

[cobalt]

Sorry
dosen't work in real life :(
sorry it will kill the fish and or screw up their offspring but not improve.
We biologists say that improvment via random mutations is like hitting a T V set with a hammer hopeing it will turn into a DVD ! (if u find out how let me know ;D)

Gee the teenage ninja turtels are on tellevision! bye all I will go watch them.
Cobalt

[chlamydomonas]

"We Biologists" do know that it does work in real life...

No stripes. A normal zebrafish (top) and a mutant fish with irregular coloring.
CREDIT: MARYANN HALDI/MIT

[jjgallow]

You are both right.

Mutagenesis can be used in theory, and also has similar effects to your fish as smashing a sledgehammer into your t.v. would have.

Although many mutagenesis experiments are done, to get the photo you showed takes much more work than is often described even in the scientific paper.

The mutated animals are mostly horribly deformed with thousands of crippling mutations. For the one mutation you want, you must get rid of all the others. This is accomplished by breeding the mutated fish with "wild" strains....over.....and over....and over...10, 20, 30 times. That's if it can breed.

Each time, the mutation you are looking for must somehow be retained.

That's why the experiements are done on animals which breeed readily at young ages....such as zebra fish. See you in 30 years for a discus...but yes in theory you could get some crazy fish out of it.

[chlamydomonas]

I had heard mention of a German breeder trying this in the early days of discus... does anyone know of actual attempts with discus?

I am just curious.

[cobalt]

we tried it at our lab a few times with diffrent other chiclids.
sure you get colorles fish but they mostly dont survive.
I heard persistant rumors that in Russia there is a lab from discus-Russia that tried no sucsess.
sorry no more details.
Cobalt

[jouniv]

I have been wondering the same question Chlamy! I don't think big breeders would tell if they 1. tried, 2. succeeded. I see it more than likely than attempts have been made. Maybe it comes down to just big numbers of breeding pairs, and heavy selection. We all know the importance of pidgeon blood "platform" for todays varieties.

To me the beauty is in strong wild discus appearance, but neverheless the topic is interesting.

Jouni

[Pat_in_NC]

Chlamy,

I am a yeast geneticist/cell biologist by training and EMS mutagenesis has been done for many years with yeast--the trick is getting the right dose (using a kill curve). Since a lot of EMS mutagenic screens have been done recently on Zebrafish--I am sure you could use thier conditions on Discus. The problem for doing this in Discus is 1) the long time to maturity 2) the volume of water and care needed per fish 3) the difficulty in breeding and raising large number of fry from each cross (just ask anyone who has tried how easy that is!). Remember to identify recessive mutations (which will be by far the most frequent) you will have to homozygous the locus by crossing (or backcrossing) progeny. This is far easier in Zebrafish (where they have a few tricks as well to identify recessive mutants) which breed like crazy--require little water per fish and mature much faster than Discus. Don't expect any Nature or Science papers on the Discus mutagenic screens anytime soon!

Pat

[cobalt]

we tried also to cause mutagenesis with uV.
We went by using the hertwig curve.
with carp and fish that are proflic it may work.
but discus are not. they have too little eggs and it is hard to raise them without parents.

it still is a cool idea when we have better transgenesis technology I would like to order cold resistant discus!

COBALT