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radio controlled genes

31.05.2017

It is known that many animals, such as birds, bees, lobsters, newts and others, can sense the relatively weak magnetic field of the Earth and navigate in space with its help. Such abilities are “hardwired” into the genetic code of these animals, and recently researchers from Baltimore managed to find the corresponding sequence in the genome of one fish, the glass catfish (glass catfish, Kryptopterus bicirrhis), isolate it and introduce this sequence into the genome of nerve cells in the brain of an experimental rodent. After such a genetic modification, the rodent's brain became sensitive to electromagnetic waves, and a similar technology can be used in the future for non-destructive monitoring of the activity of nerve cells and heart tissue cells, for example.

Scientists have previously been able to identify the genes responsible for "magnetic perception" in pigeons and some types of bacteria. Most of these genes are part of very complex biological mechanisms, and the gene removed from the glass catfish is unique in that it works completely on its own and is not associated with any other complex biochemical complexes.

The scientists searched for the magnetic gene by inserting segments of the catfish genome into the genome of frog egg cells. Observations of the reaction of modified eggs to a magnetic field allowed scientists to identify a gene called the electromagnetic perceptive gene (EPG). How exactly proteins produced by the EPG gene sense magnetic fields is still a mystery to scientists, which they will have to unravel in the near future. But the effect of these proteins has been known for a long time, this protein fills the cell with calcium ions, which leads to the "activation" of a neuron or contraction of a muscle tissue cell, for example.

The researchers believe their discovery opens the door to wireless biological pacemakers and brain-computer interfaces that use radio signals to communicate with nerve cells. In addition, the introduction of the EPG gene can be what gives animals and even humans another kind of sense - a sense of magnetic and electromagnetic perception, similar to that possessed by numerous superheroes from various science fiction films and works.

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