Scientists changed scales on chicken feet to feathers by tweaking a single gene

By tweaking a precise gene, scientists have found a way to permanently transform the scales on a chicken’s feet into feathers. The final results deliver new insight into the bird’s evolutionary origins from dinosaurs.

“Like birds, it really is clear right now that several dinosaurs have been partially covered with feathers as effectively as scales,” mentioned Michel Milinkovitch, a professor in the Division of Genetics and Evolution at the University of Geneva and co-author of the new investigation. “In birds, it really is equivalent. So, by altering this gene, we can essentially expand or lower the proportion of the physique that is covered by feathers or scales based on when this gene is specifically expressed.”

To execute this genetic switcheroo, scientists in Switzerland targeted the sonic hedgehog gene (Shh), which controls a signaling pathway that determines the improvement of particular traits although at the embryonic level. This involves the brain and spinal cord limbs and skin appendages, like scales and feathers, according to the study, published Might 17 in the journal Science Advances. (And, yes, Shh is named following the titular character of the well known video game.)

In the lab, scientists utilised a method identified as “egg candling,” which entails utilizing a light supply to illuminate the blood vessels inside an egg. This enabled them to determine a appropriate vessel to straight inject the building embryo with a molecule that activates the Shh pathway. For the study, they utilised broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), which are raised for industrial meat production, according to a statement.

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“We carried out the injection on day 11, which is the precise time when scales typically arise on the embryo,” lead author Rory Cooper, a postdoctoral fellow in artificial and all-natural evolution at the University of Geneva, told Reside Science. “If we execute the injection even a single day also late, the embryo has currently begun building scales.”

Just after the eggs hatched, the scientists noticed the formation of downy juvenile feathers on the chicks’ feet. These supersoft feathers have been comparable to the feathers covering the rest of their bodies, according to the statement.

“The impact is definitely clear after they hatch,” Cooper mentioned. “And the adjust lasts. When the chickens create the feathers, they never go back to getting scales on the targeted region.”

The researchers have been shocked at how simple it was to shape-shift the chickens’ feet and mentioned it presents the group a new understanding of how these animals evolved.

“Feathers are a function of adjust,” Milinkovitch told Reside Science. “In dinosaurs, feathers could have been utilised to regulate the animal’s internal temperature or as a colorful show. Flight came later. By altering the expression of a single gene, we have been capable to build a cascade of developmental effects that triggered feather development, supplying new insights into the evolution of these animals.”