Are you afraid of picking bones when eating fish? Eating "boneless fish" may soon become a reality

Are you still worried about fish bones stuck in your throat? Are you still afraid to eat fish because of the fear of fish bones?

Good news! Good news! A major breakthrough in universities, the first wave of boneless fish has been successfully researched! Picking out fish bones may become a thing of the past, and we can finally eat fish in big mouthfuls!

Source: Weibo screenshot

Fish meat is tender, delicious and nutritious, but the presence of fish bones has discouraged wave after wave of diners. Not only foreigners who are not good at using chopsticks, but also many native Chinese people hate to pick fish bones when eating. But there is good news recently. The team of Huazhong Agricultural University has successfully found the gene that controls fish bones and bred the first generation of "less bone fish". With the deepening of research, it is not impossible to breed "boneless fish" in the future. For friends who like to eat fish but are afraid of fish bones, this is simply great news.

1.What is the use of fish bones?

When it comes to "fish bones", everyone's first reaction is definitely "easy to get stuck in the throat". They are thin and sharp, not only difficult to remove, but also easy to get stuck in the throat. If not handled in time, it is likely to cause serious consequences. Like us humans, fish are also vertebrates. The skeleton of fish includes the skull, spine and appendage bones. Generally speaking, these fish bones are relatively unlikely to get stuck in the throat (of course, this depends on factors such as the size of the fish bones and how they are eaten). The most maddening thin and difficult to pick fish bones are hidden in the fish meat. Its official name is intermuscular bone (intermuscular thorn). The "fish bones" we are talking about here refer to intermuscular bones. The fish with intermuscular bones that we most often come into contact with are mostly freshwater carp fish.

Intermuscular bones are not the spine and main bones that fish use to swim, but small spines that grow in the muscles. As to why fish have intermuscular bones, the scientific community has not yet reached a conclusion. However, scientists have found that in the evolution of fish from simple to complex, intermuscular bones first increase, then decrease, and disappear completely at a certain stage of evolution. Therefore, scientists believe that intermuscular bones are used to support the relatively loose muscles of fish.

Fishbone

Source: pixabay

Fish bones are small, thin, and sharp, and they can easily get stuck in people's throats. This is why some people like to eat fish but are afraid of fish bones. Some people think that since there are bones, can't they just pick them out? But in addition to eating them directly, fish bones have another negative impact, which is that they cause trouble for large-scale production. After all, these intermuscular bones that are not much thicker than a needle can hardly be removed 100% on the assembly line. Therefore, "eating fish without picking bones" has always been the dream of many lazy people when facing delicious fresh fish. And now, it may become a reality, and "boneless fish" may be on your table.

2.How to develop boneless fish?

How was the boneless fish developed? From the perspective of gene editing, there are four steps to remove the bones of fish: find the fishbone gene - find the "effective" gene - find the "boneless" gene - obtain the boneless fish.

Team Photos

Source: Yangtze River Daily

First, researchers have to pick out all the fish bones from a fish, degrade them, extract the RNA from the fish bones, and find the gene molecule expression of the fish bones. RNA is the abbreviation of ribonucleic acid, which is the carrier of genetic information. Unlike DNA, RNA is mainly distributed in the cytoplasm of biological cells and presents a single helical structure.

Source: People's Daily

After finding these genes in the fish bones, scientists used gene editing technology to experiment on them one by one, and finally found an "effective" gene that can affect the growth of fish bones. This process is very long, and each experiment is a fresh start. After editing about 40 genes and going through 7 years of research, the research team finally found an "effective" gene that affects fish bones in 2018. This gene can reduce 70% of fish bones. Although it did not achieve the goal of "boneless", it also brought great encouragement to the entire team.

Source: People's Daily

Finally, in 2019, the "master" gene that affects fishbones appeared "all of a sudden," as the leader of the research, Gao Zexia, put it. This gene can reduce fishbones by 100%, truly achieving the goal of "no bones".

After several generations of breeding, the boneless trait of fish has also been very stable. After testing, it was found that although the fish bones have changed, the nutritional content of the fish meat is not much different. In other words, there are fewer fish bones, but the fish meat has not changed.

Source: People's Daily

Source: People's Daily

Although this technology has been successfully tested, it still needs further verification. At present, Gao Zexia's team and the team of Academician Gui Jianfang of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have experimented with the "main effect" gene that controls the growth of fish bones in bream, grass carp and crucian carp, and obtained the first generation of fish with few bones. It is believed that after generations of breeding, the transformation from fish with few bones to fish without bones will be successful, and the real fish without bones will be served on the tables of ordinary families.

Team Photos

Source: Yangtze River Daily

3.What are some fish that naturally have fewer bones?

Of course, it will take a long time for the research results to truly enter the market. So, are there any fish in nature that have fewer bones?

Fish at the market

Source: pixabay

The answer is yes. The presence of fish bones in different fish is different. Lower bony fish have more intermuscular bones. For example, fish of the order Cypriniformes, such as the crucian carp in braised crucian carp, the grass carp in sour soup fish, and the dace in black bean sauce, all have more fish bones.

Largemouth Bass

Source: Wikipedia

If you are really too lazy to pick bones, what kind of fish should you choose? In fact, there are many edible fish to choose from, such as fish of the order Perciformes, such as sea bass, grouper, red sea bream, large and small yellow croaker, etc.

Most scholars believe that the muscles of these fish are relatively tight and no longer need the support of intermuscular bones, so the intermuscular bones are less or completely absent. In addition, some marine fish have relatively fewer and neater fish bones, such as hairtail, cod, flounder, etc. For friends who don't want to pick bones, these fish are also good choices.