FlyTrapCare Forums

Not sure if it's been posted already, but here's a recent article about a genetically engineered flytrap that glows in order to research how it counts the number of touches:


https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10 ... ures-prey/

WOA. that is absolutely awesome! does the glow fade after 20 seconds?

I read that and they found out that when one trigger hair is activated for around 30 seconds the plant boost out calciun when another trigger was touched it then closes the trap. Really amazing.

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

yeah someone at Bioglow likes Cp's

I gotta get myself one of those!!!

@optique, I can’t see your pictures, they just keep on loading, does anyone know why?

sanguinearocks101 wrote:@optique, I can’t see your pictures, they just keep on loading, does anyone know why?

optique wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:43 pm

sanguinearocks101 wrote:@optique, I can’t see your pictures, they just keep on loading, does anyone know why?

Can someone please tell me what it says, I can’t see.

I don’t see any text, but the image seems to be an S. Purpurea (or a hybrid of said species) that has been genetically engineered to glow.

Thanks for posting this! I've been meaning to get back on the forums for a while and post this article.

I actually reached out to the authors of the study to see if I could get one of the VFTs that they made glow. They responded! Unfortunately, the glowing of the flytraps can't be seen with the unaided eye

I am no expert but i cant see CP's that glow very long or very bright. the energy requirements must be a strain on normal plants.

optique wrote:I am no expert but i cant see CP's that glow very long or very bright. the energy requirements must be a strain on normal plants.

Did you read the article? From what I recall reading, they genetically engineered the flytrap to create bioluminescence by introducing a gene for a calcium sensor protein called GCaMP6, which glows green whenever it binds to calcium. They then proved that it was calcium ions rushing through the trap that actually caused the trap to snap shut after reaching a certain threshold. So yeah, the glowing wouldn't last long -- just when the trap pushes calcium through it to trigger it to close and, I suppose, however long it would take for it to flush out the calcium.

Matt wrote: ↑Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:00 pm

optique wrote:I am no expert but i cant see CP's that glow very long or very bright. the energy requirements must be a strain on normal plants.

Did you read the article? From what I recall reading, they genetically engineered the flytrap to create bioluminescence by introducing a gene for a calcium sensor protein called GCaMP6, which glows green whenever it binds to calcium. They then proved that it was calcium ions rushing through the trap that actually caused the trap to snap shut after reaching a certain threshold. So yeah, the glowing wouldn't last long -- just when the trap pushes calcium through it to trigger it to close and, I suppose, however long it would take for it to flush out the calcium.

Oh! I've used GCaMP6 in neurons in my grad school research! It is insanely cool to see it in a flytrap leaf.

It actually might be worse for the plant to try and get it to glow really bright with GCaMP6 than some protein like GFP that just glows all the time, come to think of it. Making too much of a fluorescent protein uses up a lot of energy, but making too much of a calcium indicator...binds up all the cell's calcium. And calcium is really important for a huge number of signaling processes in cells, so you really don't want it all going to making GCaMP6 glow. Probably best to keep it on the dim side, unfortunately : (