When the butterfly emerged from its pupa, Robert Reed was stunned. It was a Gulf fritillary—a bright-orange species with a few tigerlike stripes. But this butterfly had no trace of orange anywhere. It was entirely black and silver. “It was the most heavy-metal butterfly I’ve ever seen,” Reed says. “It was amazing to see that thing crawl out of the pupa.”
Reed’s team at Cornell University had created the metal butterfly by deleting just one of its genes, using the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR. And by performing the same feat across several butterfly species, the team showed that this one gene, known as optix, controls all kinds of butterfly patterns. Red becomes black. Matte becomes shiny. Another gene, known as WntA, produces even wilder variations when it’s deleted. Eyespots disappear. Boundaries shift. Stripes blur.
These experiments prove what earlier studies had suggested—that optix and WntA are “paintbrush genes,” says Anyi Mazo-Vargas, one of Reed’s students. “Wherever you put them, you’ll have a pattern.”
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The details are still unclear though. How do these gene networks get rewired? When did they take on their roles as master regulators of wing patterns? Why have only a few genes done so? Did butterflies recruit these genes to paint their wings once during their evolution, or many times independently? A decade ago, these would have been fanciful questions. But in the CRISPR era, it suddenly seems possible to answer them.
“CRISPR is a miracle,” Reed says. “The first time we tried it, it worked, and when I saw that butterfly come out ... the biggest challenge of my career had just turned into an undergraduate project.”
- Scientists Can Now Repaint Butterfly Wings
Reed’s team at Cornell University had created the metal butterfly by deleting just one of its genes, using the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR. And by performing the same feat across several butterfly species, the team showed that this one gene, known as optix, controls all kinds of butterfly patterns. Red becomes black. Matte becomes shiny. Another gene, known as WntA, produces even wilder variations when it’s deleted. Eyespots disappear. Boundaries shift. Stripes blur.
These experiments prove what earlier studies had suggested—that optix and WntA are “paintbrush genes,” says Anyi Mazo-Vargas, one of Reed’s students. “Wherever you put them, you’ll have a pattern.”
[---]
The details are still unclear though. How do these gene networks get rewired? When did they take on their roles as master regulators of wing patterns? Why have only a few genes done so? Did butterflies recruit these genes to paint their wings once during their evolution, or many times independently? A decade ago, these would have been fanciful questions. But in the CRISPR era, it suddenly seems possible to answer them.
“CRISPR is a miracle,” Reed says. “The first time we tried it, it worked, and when I saw that butterfly come out ... the biggest challenge of my career had just turned into an undergraduate project.”
- Scientists Can Now Repaint Butterfly Wings
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