Blue rats. Seriously, that's what you care about here.

July 29, 2009 7:16 AM

Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have been testing the possibility that a blue food dye found in Gatorade and blue M&Ms could assist in healing spinal cord injuries, and oh who cares OMG blue rats look!
posted by XQUZYPHYR (51 comments total)

Back in 2004, Nedergaard's team discovered that the spinal cord was rich in a molecule called P2X7, which is also known as "the death receptor" for its ability to allow ATP to latch onto motor neurons and send the signals which eventually kill them.

Nedergaard knew that BBG could thwart the function of P2X7, and its similarity to a blue food dye approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1982 gave her the confidence to test it intravenously.

Errr....wait. I assume the "death receptor" is there so my body can kill things like cancer cells. If BBG is blocking that, isn't that a bad thing?
posted by DU at 7:23 AM on July 29, 2009

This has the makings of the next The Secret of NIMH.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:24 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue.

You say "bug" I say "feature". Those blue ratties were so cute, OMG!
posted by JoanArkham at 7:25 AM on July 29, 2009 [3 favorites]

Errr....wait. I assume the "death receptor" is there so my body can kill things like cancer cells. If BBG is blocking that, isn't that a bad thing?

Well yeah, but in the short term, it'd heal your spinal cord injury, making it worth the risk. Kind of like the way anti-rejection drugs temporarily destroy the immune systems of transplant patients.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:31 AM on July 29, 2009

Blue rats. I don't wonder that it can extend to other, small animals so that Paris Hilton can color coordinate with her outfits...
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:31 AM on July 29, 2009

Blue blue?
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 7:32 AM on July 29, 2009

Given the number of ways to turn people blue, including colloidal silver, rare genetic disorders, and now this, I'm disappointed that there aren't more blue people walking the streets. This is not the future I signed up for.
posted by logicpunk at 7:38 AM on July 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

This should make it easier to find Jagged Ice Powerade. And I already have a bad spine. I need blue stuff!
If only we could go back to the days when blue snowcones were coconut, instead of raspberry, flavor.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 7:42 AM on July 29, 2009

Well yeah, but in the short term, it'd heal your spinal cord injury, making it worth the risk. Kind of like the way anti-rejection drugs temporarily destroy the immune systems of transplant patients.

My point was not "could this give spinal cord injured people cancer". My point was "could this give blue M&M eaters cancer".
posted by DU at 7:49 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

rats, rats lay down flat
we don't need you, we act like that
and if you think you're un-loved
then we know about that...
posted by porn in the woods at 7:49 AM on July 29, 2009

If this makes it to humans, the side effects may not be as career-limiting as they might seem..
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:50 AM on July 29, 2009

There's a problem with this story: The rat they use to illustrate it is a "Dumbo," the kind they sell in pet stores. What they don't use them for is medical research. At all, ever, because they're all kinds of recessive are useless for that sort of thing. Oh, and the rat's fur would turn blue, too, as well as the entire skin, not just the tip of the nose.

New Scientist credits one Takahiro Takano, Ph.D. with the photo. But what we got here is Photoshop. Anyone feel like busting a Ph.D.?
posted by proscriptus at 7:53 AM on July 29, 2009 [5 favorites]

Oh sad looking rat, why are you so blue?

*reads article*

Ah. I see.
posted by quin at 7:59 AM on July 29, 2009

I like the phrasing of this part the best:

its similarity to a blue food dye approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1982 gave her the confidence to test it intravenously.

"Yeah, it was a difficult decision, but I finally worked up the confidence to inject a two-dollar lab rat with food coloring."
posted by Greg Nog at 8:05 AM on July 29, 2009 [14 favorites]

Weird. I used to work on P2X ATP receptors. I was mutating them for fun and profit (mostly P2X2, we never worked with X7...) Now I work on rats. Not the blue kind though.

Also, an editorial quibble: "Researchers [...] injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats [...] The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue." (emphasis mine)

Get your damn species straight, idiots. If you can't tell the difference between a mouse and a rat, you shouldn't be writing science stories for CNN. Here's a hint: One of them is 10 times bigger than the other. This is like writing about a group studying cougars and then referring to them as housecats in the next damn sentence.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:07 AM on July 29, 2009 [15 favorites]

Anyone feel like busting a Ph.D.?

No. But I'll add that the filename begins with the word "art."
posted by nzero at 8:08 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

When I was a kid my dad brought home a blue guinea pig from his research lab. I named her "bluebell."
posted by tidecat at 8:09 AM on July 29, 2009

Oh, and the rat's fur would turn blue, too, as well as the entire skin, not just the tip of the nose.

I'm not any kind of scientist, and I'm not indicating whether or not I think the picture is shopped, but I call shenanigans on this statement.

In the picture (shopped or not), you can see that the ears, paws, and even the skin around the eyes are blue. Everything else is covered by fur.

They indicate that it's only a temporary change. I would guess that it has something to do with the blue dye getting into the blood stream. Hair has no blood, therefore the fur doesn't turn blue. A similar thing happens during a fluorescein angiogram. A dye (an orange-ish one) is injected, and it will tint a person's skin for a few hours to a day. No effect on their hair.
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:09 AM on July 29, 2009 [5 favorites]

There's a problem with this story: The rat they use to illustrate it is a "Dumbo," the kind they sell in pet stores. What they don't use them for is medical research.

It could easily be a Sprague Dawley or any number of other albino strains. The PNAS website is currently busted so I can't tell you which one they used in the actual research. For illustration purposes, an albino is preferable, as you can more easily see the color change in the vasculature.


Oh, and the rat's fur would turn blue, too, as well as the entire skin, not just the tip of the nose.

This is wrong and I'm concerned that you have no idea what you're talking about. Brilliant blue will probably extravasate more than say, Evans Blue, but from the picture it loos like it remains mainly confined to the intravascular compartment following an IV injection. The fur is not vascularized at all and will not change color unless the rat is dipped in the dye.
posted by monocyte at 8:11 AM on July 29, 2009 [10 favorites]

Brilliant blue will probably extravasate more than say, Evans Blue, but from the picture it loos like it remains mainly confined to the intravascular compartment following an IV injection. The fur is not vascularized at all and will not change color unless the rat is dipped in the dye.

Yeah. What he said.
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:14 AM on July 29, 2009

Also, Greg Nog, $2 rats? The average run-of-the-mill adult lab rat runs between $20 to $40 (pdf price list for one lab animal supplier), with special strains at much higher costs (some of ours are $100+ per animal).

This does not take into account the cost of shipping, or per diem charges for food, veterinary care, and cage charges for housing in an animal facility. (Yes, even rats and mice get full veterinary care.) This also does not take into account the pages and pages and pages of paperwork necessary to do anything with an animal - the justifications, approvals, training, annual reviews, recordkeeping, ad nauseum. Add in the expenses of lab equipment, surgical equipment for procedures, etc. and this adds up quickly.

Also keep in mind that this specific line of research is an injury recovery model: This means that the rats must be injured by the researchers, on purpose, so they can study healing. This puts animals into an entirely different class of use, which requires MUCH more justification, more monitoring, and more scrutiny both from local animal use and care boards as well as the general public (if this is federally funded, the grant proposal is public domain and available for anyone - from the ASPCA to PETA to you - to look over and get worked up about).

Now add in the cost of personnel: Yourself, your lab techs, any grad students or postdocs you are funding. You're paying them the entire time even if you aren't doing anything except waiting for approval.

I wanted to inject a simple neural tracer into my rats. This tracer has been safely used in multiple animal models for over 30 years. It still took me about two months to file the proper paperwork and get everything approved. Start imagining how long it takes to get approval for breaking an animal's spine so you can inject an untested and unknown substance in hopes it might do something beneficial. Still think it's hard to get up the nerve to try this?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here. Just making sure that y'all understand that biomedical research is never as simple as you think it is, or as straightforward as it might appear from the outside.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:21 AM on July 29, 2009 [35 favorites]

Blue rats, what's the matter?
Blue rats, pitter-patter
Blue rats, what's the matter?
Blue rats, pitter-patter
posted by thylacine at 8:26 AM on July 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

per diem charges for food, veterinary care, and cage charges

Sounds like a typical business trip for me.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:31 AM on July 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

With regard to the 'shopped or not question: Check the "before" picture, folks. The rat is an albino, most likely a Wistar or Sprague-Dawley as noted above (hard to tell because SDs were originally derived from Wistar stock). In the "after" shot, the eyes are blue (appearing black) because of the dye.

Albino rats have red eyes. The color is there because you are seeing the capillaries in the retina. Add blue dye, the retina gets stained blue as well, the eyes appear dark. As monocyte pointed out it looks like the dye mostly stays in the blood, and isn't necessarily transferred to tissues.

And in science research, "recessive" is a good thing. The vast majority of commonly-used rodent models are inbred to the point of near-identicality. This way, any differences between groups can more easily be attributed to experimental manipulations rather than genetic differences between animals. Even the so-called "outbred" strains of rat and mouse are pretty inbred.

"Dumbo rats" aren't albinos - they aren't even white - and they aren't used in research by anyone I've ever met. The rat in the picture looks like a standard Wistar or SD to me, and I know from rats.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:35 AM on July 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

I know I should be thinking Science! and finally, I hate spinal cord injuries, but a large part of me is yelling LOOK AT THE CUTE LITTLE BLUE PAWS!
posted by adipocere at 8:39 AM on July 29, 2009 [5 favorites]

I showed my sister the cute blue rats and her response was: "I suppose they were just born with those back injuries, and the scientists were just trying really hard to cure them, right?"
posted by hermitosis at 8:39 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

My point was "could this give blue M&M eaters cancer".

Probably not, I imagine they have to inject a lot of BBG in order to have an effect. Considering the difference in mass between rats and people, you'd have to inject that much more of it to block P2X7
posted by scrutiny at 8:54 AM on July 29, 2009

I hope the rat gets better.
posted by pracowity at 9:02 AM on July 29, 2009

I hope the rat gets better.

Euthanized and tossed in the incinerator.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:05 AM on July 29, 2009

I'm blue I'm blue I'm blue doobie doobie do de do.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM on July 29, 2009

Isn't fur dead? So the skin could turn blue on monday and the fur would stay white for a week until the ratty 'roots' were showing through?

Oh, and, WANT!
posted by twine42 at 9:08 AM on July 29, 2009

I hope the rat gets better.

From some of the talk above, sounds like people are working on making new and better rats, so your hopefulness is justified.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:15 AM on July 29, 2009

Euthanized and tossed in the incinerator.

I know. I was just wishing. But they could at least have given him a little shoebox funeral or cremation ceremony. They should give them all funerals that you have to attend after work if you were involved with the experiments that killed them.

Poor blue rat. He dyed for our sins.
posted by pracowity at 9:28 AM on July 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ok, so can we stop mocking my blue Gatorade addiction yet?

No?

Well, fine. I'm not going to share with you. When your spine crumbles, don't come crying to me.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:32 AM on July 29, 2009

Ceruleanation^*, previously on the blue.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 10:04 AM on July 29, 2009

seems like this rat is cute enough to have a name... suggestions?

i like "Pepsi"
posted by sexyrobot at 10:21 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Poor blue rat. He dyed for our sins spines.

FTFY
posted by juv3nal at 10:22 AM on July 29, 2009

Blue rat is blue
posted by WerewolvesRancheros at 10:33 AM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

What would this do to your eyesight? Would it be "ooo, pretty colors" or "holy shit, it's dark in here"?

That said, I'd rather have a functioning spine and blindness than the alternative...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:09 AM on July 29, 2009

The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue.

You mean, other than having a weight dropped on them to crush their spines, and then being hacked up and thrown away three weeks after they temporarily turned blue?

Yeah, that was the only side effect.

(I know animal research has done wonders for human health, but that doesn't mean I like reading about animals being gravely and agonizingly injured, tested, and then killed.)
posted by tzikeh at 11:29 AM on July 29, 2009

starts developing a rat-sized drug pump for his two rats
posted by Samizdata at 11:40 AM on July 29, 2009

For the love of God won't someone tell me how I can make myself blue for parties.
posted by Damienmce at 12:19 PM on July 29, 2009

Don't get an invitation?
posted by Cranberry at 12:27 PM on July 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

...won't someone tell me how I can make myself blue for parties?

Well, as I said previously, previously.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 12:56 PM on July 29, 2009

I'm still not going to eat the rat.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:18 PM on July 29, 2009

At last, a reliable source for Libertarian Party candidates for US Senate.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:32 PM on July 29, 2009

Violet, you're turning....er...blue?
posted by elder18 at 2:08 PM on July 29, 2009

OK you rat experts, why does that rat in the picture have a little chinrest?

Also, we have a pet Dumbo rat that is a) mostly white, but with dark eyes and a black splotch on her back, and b) messed up enough that I have to trim her damn teeth every week. Our normal (friendlier and otherwise healthier) rat died of a rat respiratory disease a couple of weeks ago, and I've been wondering if she could have survived if I had built a little oxygen tent for her.

I'll let you guys know how dyeing our dumbo rat goes. I'm thinking green or purple, though.
posted by Hello Dad, I'm in Jail at 1:16 AM on July 30, 2009

First the red M&Ms give you cancer and now this, the blue ones heal your spine?

(yes, I know they never actually gave you cancer but they were missing for years from the scare)
posted by caddis at 2:40 AM on July 30, 2009

OK you rat experts, why does that rat in the picture have a little chinrest?

I'm no rat expert, but he's got a broken back. Paralyzed. Probably that chin rest helps him keep his head upright so he can breathe and eat and drink.
posted by pracowity at 3:08 AM on July 30, 2009

This is wrong and I'm concerned that you have no idea what you're talking about...

- monocyte

You just summarized every Internet forum posting ever made in one sentence.
posted by chairface at 9:47 PM on August 3, 2009 [1 favorite]