You Don't Like Green Eggs and Ham? How About Green Ham and Eggs?

By Linda Orlando

Taiwan made global headlines in 2003 when a group of scientists there created the world’s first transgenic glowing fish by transferring a fluorescent protein extracted from jellyfish into the nucleus of a fish embryo. Environmentalists immediately protested, saying that the fluorescent green fish might change the planet’s ecosystem. Now some equally enterprising Taiwanese scientists at the National Taiwan University might change your breakfast plate, because they have successfully bred fluorescent green pigs.

According to Wu Shinn-Chih, professor of the university’s Institute and Department of Animal Science and Technology, a team of their scientists created the pigs in the hope that their success would boost ongoing stem cell research in their country. Pigs are commonly used to study human diseases, and the transgenic ones would help researchers monitor and trace tissue changes during physical development. To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos, which were then inseminated into eight female pigs. Four of the sows became pregnant, and the three green male piglets were born nearly four months ago.

Taiwan is not the first country in the world to breed transgenic pigs, but the researchers insist that their pigs are better because the pigs previously bred by other researchers in the world were only partially fluorescent. The Taiwanese green porkers are green from the inside out. Even their hearts and internal organs are green. In daylight, the pigs’ eyes, teeth, and trotters look green, and their skin has a greenish tinge. When a blue light is shone on them in the dark, their bodies glow green, as bright as a torch. But the scientists say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from other pigs.

The transgenic pigs will make it easier for researchers to study human diseases. Their genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, so the protein is easy to spot. If the stem cells of a transgenic pig are injected into another animal, scientists can monitor how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test. The team of researchers say they hope they will be able to create a whole new generation of transgenic pigs for research, by mating the glowing green pigs with ordinary female pigs. (They’ll just have to be sure to fit the females with sunglasses first.)