The translucent skin will allow researchers to see what's going on during development without dissecting the fish.
Credit: AFP
TOKYO: First came transparent frogs. Now Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing goldfish whose beating hearts can be seen through translucent scales and skin.
The see-through creatures are part of efforts to reduce the need for dissections, which have become increasingly controversial, particularly in schools.
"You can see a live heart and other organs because the scales and skin have no pigments," said Yutaka Tamaru, an associate professor in the department of life science at Mie University. "You don't have to cut it open. You can see a tiny brain above the goldfish's black eyes."
Breeding experiment
The joint team of researchers at Mie University and Nagoya University in central Japan produced the unusual mutant of the ryukin breed of goldfish by picking hatchery goldfish with pale skin and repeatedly breeding them together.
"Having a pale colour is a disadvantage for goldfish in an aquarium but it's good to see how organs sit in a body three-dimensionally," Tamaru said.
The fish are expected to live up to roughly 20 years and could grow as long as 25 cm and weigh more than two kilograms, much bigger than other fish used in experiments, such as zebrafish and Japanese medaka.
"As this goldfish grows bigger, you can watch its whole life," said Tamaru.
Meanwhile another group of researchers who announced in 2007 they had developed see-through frogs said they planned to start selling the four-legged creatures, whose skin is transparent from the tadpole stage (see "No need for dissection with transparent frogs").
Transparent frogs
"We are making progress in their mass-production. They are likely to be put on the market next year," said Masayuki Sumida, professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology of Hiroshima University.
Sumida said see-through tadpoles and adult frogs would be available in the first half of next year in Japan for laboratories and schools and as pets, with a price tag expected to be below 10,000 yen (US$110) each. He also wants to sell the creature abroad.
Animal rights activists have pressed for humane alternatives to dissections, such as using computer simulations. Sumida's team produced the creature from rare mutants of the Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica), whose backs are usually ochre or brown.
Two kinds of recessive genes have been known to cause the frog to be pale.
While goldfish are easier to keep, frogs are vertebrates and therefore more closely related to people, making them preferable for medical experiments, Sumida said.
Correction to last paragraph in transparent goldfish article
BOTH frogs AND goldfish are vertebrates. Yes, frogs are more closely related to us land vertebrates, share with us a more recent common ancestor closer to the one providing the basic land vertebrate body plan and limb structure, but all true vertebrate characteristics do apply to goldfish.