A new study reveals how the body of electric fish works. According to experts, these creatures could perform an ability that is similar to how the birds produce sound when they sing.' This skill is powered by a shift in their genetic structure that evolved throughout generations of electric fish.
How Some Fish Obtained Electric Organs
UT Austin researchers confirmed that the genetic control region they discovered only controls the expression of a sodium channel gene in muscle and no other tissues. In this image, a green fluorescent protein lights up only in the trunk muscle in a developing zebrafish embryo.
Experts say that the electric power of particular fish species helps them to determine other groups of fish, the gender of other individuals, and even the identity of other animals. The research presented data that shows how the specific genetic changes in the fish obtain such powerful electric organs. According to the authors, the information from this stunning evolution and mutation might contribute to separate studies that develop cures against certain diseases that target humans.
The genetic evolution of electric fish was the only reason why their species had the strange but unique ability to produce energy that could electrocute other organisms. In fish, there are numerous versions of a specified gene that regulates the tiny muscle motor in their bodies. This gene is known as the sodium channel.
The electric fish, including the electric eels, have their sodium channels turned off throughout their generational existence, and this pushes their bodies to produce another gene of the same type. This separate sodium channel is now active in other cells that did not have the same component before.
Through this transition, the tiny muscle motors that previously worked to make muscles contract were repurposed and allowed a mutation in which electric signals are generated from the organs of the fish.
University of Texas neuroscience specialist and lead author of the study Harold Zakon explained that the breakthrough of discovery about the evolution of electric fish species showed how such a tiny change in a gene could shift a natural function of where it is expressed, PhysOrg reports.
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Genetic Evolution in Electric Fish
The investigation, which was conducted by scholars from UT Austin and Michigan State University, got ahold of the gene's short section that was expressed in the cells of the fish. The authors affirmed that fishes with the skill to electrocute have this gene portion already altered or entirely missing from their cells.
Zakon said that the same control region specified is also present in many vertebrates such as humans. With that said, the future of studies over the electric fishes would also include observations of human genes and compare how much of it varies between individuals. The mutation and deletion of the region would also be analyzed if it has a chance to lower the expression of sodium channels in people and give them related diseases, Zako continued.
In conclusion, Zakon's team established that the sodium channel gene must be turned off in muscle cells before an electric organ acquires its unusual feature and evolves from its past functions.
Between the major groups of electric fish in the world, the researchers found that the species in Africa had mutations in the said control region, while the population in South America had the genetic portion entirely lost. Each of the groups relied on the changes in their muscle's sodium channel genes but obtained the ability through a path distinct from another.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances, titled "Divergent cis-regulatory evolution underlies the convergent loss of sodium channel expression in electric fish."
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