Electric eels — three species of freshwater fish in the genus Electrophorus — are known for their ability to produce electric organ discharge reaching voltages of up to 860 V. Given that gene transfer via intense electrical pulses is a well-established technique in genetic engineering, biologists from Nagoya University and Kyoto University hypothesized that electric eels could potentially function as a gene transfer mechanism in their aquatic environment.
“The electric eel was originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 as Gymnotus electricus, and later revised as Electrophorus electricus in 1864,” said Nagoya University biologist Atsuo Iida and colleagues.
“In 2019, based on both morphological and molecular genetics, they were reclassified into three distinct species: Electrophorus electricus, Electrophorus varii, and Electrophorus voltai.”
“These creatures are renowned for their high-voltage electric organ discharges, which they employ for both predation and defense.”
“Electric eels predominantly hunt and capture prey, particularly fish, using the high-voltage discharges in their natural habitat,” they added.
“In light of this background, we propose the hypothesis that the high-voltage electric organ discharges generated by electric eels during prey capture may have broader effects on neighboring organisms and their habitats in their natural environment.”
To investigate this hypothesis, the authors immersed zebrafish larvae in water containing DNA encoding the green fluorescent protein.
They then exposed larvae to electric eel’s electric organ discharges.
Some larvae exhibited a mosaic expression of green fluorescence, in contrast to the control group without electrical stimulation.
This suggests that electric eel discharges have the potential to function as an electroporator for the transfer of DNA into eukaryotic cells.
“We discovered that 5% of the larvae had…
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