Have you ever been sitting in your room at night thinking to yourself “Wow it’s really dark in here, I wish I had a night light, but the ones you plug into your wall are so lame!” If so, don’t worry about being lame any longer because there’s a sweet new genetically modified species on the market that will make you so cool you’ll practically be a cucumber. They’re called GloFish.

Using restriction enzymes, gel electrophoresis, cDNA, DNA sequencing, and PCR, science has managed to create these magical creatures. Gel electrophoresis machine

Restriction Enzymes Restriction enzymes cut DNA at specific recognition sites and can essentially allow scientists to bind certain sequences with other sections of DNA, making genetic engineering possible. By using these, scientists have discovered a sequence of DNA that codes for the glow in the dark feature the fishies have.

Gel electrophoresis Gel electrophoresis separates large DNA on the basis of the rate of movement through and agarose gel in an electrical field, allowing scientists to see the exactly sequence of bases in DNA strands. This is important in the glow-in-dark jellyfish-making process because scientists need to be able to know the exact genetic makeup of the jellyfish before they can modify its bases to make it glow.

Electrophoresis taking place in the agarose gel.

Complementary DNA cDNA (complementary DNA) are DNA molecules that are made using mRNA template. Scientists create cDNA libraries which provide extensive information on certain genes that are responsible for the specialized functions of a specific cell. This is helpful when trying to determine what genes will make the fish glow.

DNA sequencing DNA sequencing is exactly what it sounds like, the complete sequence of nucleotides for every single chromosome in a cell. It is important because in order for scientists to genetically modify organisms they must first understand the original sequence of that organism’s genes.

An small part of a sequence of DNA.

Polymerase chain reactions PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, is used to amplify or make copies of DNA being sampled very rapidly. While the GloFish were being made, scientists had to do many tests and trial runs to make sure that they would work and were safe so they used PCR to make lots of copies of the DNA from the fish to test it.

So, buy your GloFish today! They’re great as night lights and kids love them