A cloned pig bioengineered by Chinese scientists to glow fluorescent green when exposed to ultraviolet light has produced two piglets that also glow in the same way.
Liu Zhonghua, a professor overseeing the breeding program of cloned and genetically-altered pigs at Northeast Agricultural University in China's Heilongjiang Province, reported the birth of the special piglets in the school's website on Tuesday. The breeding program is aimed at developing technology to produce pigs whose organs will be transplanted to humans.
According to Firstcoastnews.com, the university said the two piglets, which are part of a brood of 11, have snout, trotters and tongue that glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light.
The mother of the piglets was injected with fluorescent green protein while still an embryo. It was born with the trait in December 2006.
Firstcoastnews.com quoted Robin Lovell-Badge, a genetics expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, as saying that genetic modification had successfully penetrated every cell of the mother pig so its offspring also appeared to have the green genes.
He said the technology "to genetically manipulate pigs in this way would be very valuable" in producing organs from genetically altered pigs suitable for transplant to humans.
