Surprisingly, the genome of the electric eel has been
sequenced. This finding has uncovered the mystery of how fish with electric
organs have advanced six times in the historical backdrop of life to create
electricity outside of their bodies.
"It's truly exciting to find that complex structures
like the electric organ, which evolved completely independently in six groups
of fish, seem to share the same genetic toolkit," said Jason Gallant, MSU
zoologist and co-lead author of the paper. "Biologists are starting to
learn, using genomics, that evolution makes similar structures from the same
starting materials, even if the organisms aren't even that closely
related."
The research, distributed in the ebb and flow issue of
Science, sheds light on the hereditary outline used to advance these intricate,
novel organs. It was co-headed by Michigan State University, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, University of Texas-Austin and the Systemix Institute.
"Evolution has removed the ability of muscle cells to
contract and changed the distribution of proteins in the cell membrane; now all
electrocytes do is push ions across a membrane to create a massive flow of
positive charge," said Lindsay Traeger, U-W graduate student and co-author
of the study.
The "in-series alignment" of the electrocytes and
unique polarity of each cell allows for the "summation of voltages, much
like batteries stacked in series in a flashlight," said Michael Sussman,
U-W biochemist.
The field of bioinformatics has grown tremendously with the
realization of its true potential. The market would reach $12.86 billion, witha CAGR of 21.2%, by 2020, as per a report of Allied Market Research.
We could await more exciting breakthroughs in the field of bioinformatics.
