![]() ![]() For lab tests, they could directly inject the mussels. The material could even be distributed to the mussels similarly to Zequanox engineering, which involved a frame and tarp system to pump the molluscicide underwater. Researchers could potentially engineer a food source like bacteria, or algae, which would introduce the double-stranded RNA to the mussels, Gohl said. Scientists are targeting genes they predict are involved in stress responses-including tolerating heat, or toxins such as copper sulfate. Genetic control strategies could also combine and supplement more traditional control approaches. ![]() "We have this list of potential targets that one could exploit to potentially enable some sort of biocontrol down the road," Gohl said. "Then there are also the political and social considerations, whether it would make sense to deploy something like this in the wild," Gohl said.īut, with the zebra mussel genome, which includes a map and catalog of its genes, researchers can home in on genes connected to the processes that allow the mussels to spread and survive, including the formation of shells or the threads the mussels use to attach to surfaces. Using an RNAi strategy directly for biocontrol with zebra mussels is still a bit of a moonshot, Gohl said. "In the wild they just thrive."ĭaryl Gohl, group leader of the University of Minnesota Genomics Center Innovation Lab, was among the researchers who sequenced the genome of the zebra mussel, published in 2019, and is now working on the RNAi project. "We struggle even now to keep them happy and healthy for a few weeks in our lab," Ballantyne said. The mussels, nearly impossible to eliminate in open water, are tough to keep alive in a lab, he said. "I was kind of aghast at how little we could do with them compared to a lot of other creatures." "I thought, surely in 30-plus years of looking at these mussels, we would have better tools to manipulate their DNA," Ballantyne said. The work has become personal to Ballantyne-mussels were found in the Wisconsin lake where he and his wife have a cabin. "We probably know more about that little worm than any other living thing on the planet," Ballantyne said. RNAi research, which involved injecting double-stranded RNA in the nematode worm, won scientists a 2006 Nobel Prize. ![]() The discovery has led to treatment for a rare genetic disease in humans-and could potentially be used to treat a range of serious conditions. The interference may have developed in response to these foreign appearances. Normally, RNA in a cell is single-stranded, but many viral genomes are double-stranded. Turns out, the scientists set off a naturally occurring regulatory mechanism using double-stranded RNA. Instead, scientists ended up with white petals-and an enigma. The revelatory discovery happened by accident after a number of oddities, including an effort to make an especially vibrant petunia. RNAi-RNA interference-can essentially block that process and "turn off" a gene. RNA can act as a translator, helping convert the information stored in a cell's DNA into proteins essential to the body's function. "It could provide a way to do what we can't do now, which is to treat an infested body of water," said Scott Ballantyne, a biology professor at University of Wisconsin River Falls who is part of the team that started researching RNA interference and zebra mussels this year. Now scientists are studying methods of genetic control-an approach that could spare other organisms from becoming collateral damage and potentially solve the scale problem. Or else end up being prohibitively expensive. Some control methods may work for clearing mussels from a fixed structure but struggle to stand up against the unpredictability of open water. Chemicals have been proven to kill mussels but can also be toxic to native mussels-many of which are already threatened or endangered. The search for solutions involves weighing the effect a treatment is likely to have on the mussels with the effect it may have on everything else in an ecosystem. Zebra and quagga mussels hitched a ride into the Great Lakes from Eastern European seas three decades ago, filtering and blanketing their way across much of the freshwater haven, settling down as far away as California. Throughout the country, scientists are studying a range of control methods to uproot invasive mussels, hoping that-like the threads that glue the mollusks down-something eventually sticks. ![]()
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