"We built a CRISPR panda mouse ...

[Eddy Edson]

... to test our hypothesis about giant panda's low metabolism."

Awe-struck!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1437767809572896772

We suggested the reason for the low metabolism might be traced to a panda unique mutation in the DUOX2 gene. Now we built a CRISPR-Cas9 mouse with the same mutation to test that hypothesis, and the work has just been published in National Science Review .

...

We built a mouse with the same unique DUOX2 panda mutation – called Panda mice. We then characterized their morphology, behavior and physiology to see what aspects of the panda phenotype might be traced to this one mutation.

...

The fact the panda mice were dwarfs suggests that modern ‘giant’ pandas may be descended from an even larger ancestral Panda. In fact such a mega panda is already known from the fossil record. However whether that species carries the panda DUOX2 mutation is unknown.

 

[mikeyB]

I suspect they might be misguided in this Frankenstein research. It is much more likely that the switch from being omnivorous, as in other bears, was a forced change by external factors, whether that was climate change, the moving away or prey species. Bamboo is a persistent plant, grows quickly and is plentiful, so they just started eating that, but discovered that eating that, they had to eat all day to get enough nutrition. Their gut biomes have had to change, but that’s easy. That’s why they only eat bamboo shoots, they are easy to digest. We do exactly the same thing when we eat asparagus or lemon grass, and, indeed, the sliced bamboo shoots you get in Chinese food. I have a pack in the Chinese food cupboard.

Their dentition hasn’t altered much yet, so they could still bite your hand off, so predators steer clear.

It’s an epigenetic change. A gene that has always been there has come to the fore. It’s quite likely that we have the same gene hidden in all that stuff in our DNA that does nothing we know about, but the banana finds essential, we share 40% of our DNA with bananas.

 

[Drummer]

What I want to know is if the mice have white heads with dark ears and eye patches....

 

[mikeyB]

That’s actually a deeper comment than you thought, @Drummer, it’s actually probably a bundle of genes at work, so much more likely to be epigegentic.