Hello, I've read your TG posts regarding biology and genetics, and I was wondering if I could ask a question? In the series, certain ghouls (Tatara, Naki, Yumitsu Tomoe, Rio, Asa, etc.) have red irises even when their kakugan aren't activated. There are even a few humans with naturally red eyes like Juuzou and Akira. It's been a while since I've delved deeply into genetics, but could you tell me the reason for red eyes and if you've thought on why these ghouls have naturally red irises?
Hello
I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have stopped writing genetics/bio meta for the tg fandom a while ago because of a number of reasons.
To give you a short answer, I do not personally think the red color of irises means anything in particular. Just like characters have blue, yellow, and green hair, some characters have random iris color. I don’t personally think Ishida has any scientific purpose behind this. If there has to be anything about it, it could be a random mutation in the eye pigmentation gene; that’s all.
The iris color has not been particularly associated with any ghoul phenotype. It is the sclera (white part of the eye) that has been brought to attention, and I recall I wrote my thoughts about this here [x].
the more prominent cell division is, the more mutations occur because of the polymerases reaching their limitation in their proofreading ability (be it endo or exo, 5′-3′ or 5′-3′). This is why Cancers always become worse.
An extreme differentiation of pluripotent stem cells at an extremely high rate is bound to drain all the polymerases and the checkpoints - altering the differentiation pathway of the cells. Since cells differentiate into committed cells that ultimately form organs and their tissues... then most probably, and considering the magnitude of the differentiation that took place in dragon...
I am still not sure what “creating life” meant in the context of what Furuta and Kanou said... but since Kimi confirmed my meta about the monster being a huge lump of stem cells - pluripotent stem cells in specific - then that giant thing can save millions of people with diseases that can be cured through stem cell therapy.
I think the 72 hours that Kimi specified for the dragon's inactivity is the time needed for the new batch of stem cells to commit to specific lineages, differentiate, and divide. Then when the new tissues are formed thereafter, they would bud off the main body like we saw this chapter... or expand 10 folds like Kimi predicted.
I still think pluripotent stem cells are not enough to recreate entire clones (actually it's a fact I explained scientifically in my prediction meta few weeks ago). Instead, totipotent stem cells should be present (maybe in the nucleus?) ... and so this might explain why the clones are incomplete and seem to be weak & short-lived.
Hello, can you explain more in detail what this nucleus means to both Kaneki eating it from Furuta ? Is Furuta gonna die soon, because of it missing?
Hello
Please, again, take this with a grain of salt because I am very confused about the translation and even changing one word would be enough to revoke the entire interpretation and lead to another.. specifically that there is a difference in MS and JB’s translations…
For me, it can be either of the following cases:
A- Furuta’s Nucleus is nothing special
This makes sense because, in reality, all Kanou’s experimental subjects received a nucleus: Kaneki, Amon, Takizawa, Kurona & Nashiro, the investigators made into quinx, and the oggai children… There is no way for them to become what they became without receiving a nucleus from a ghoul which was Rize or Yoshimura depending on the subject. Even when we talk in terms of kakuhou or organ transplants, those are cells that have nuclei.
In short, it is possible that Kanou was only declaring that Furuta was also one of his test subjects and had a transplant operation to get Rize’s DNA.
There is no way you can insert someone else’s DNA directly into someone’s body without it being surrounded by a cell… at least not through a surgery. In bacteria, we can do this through a process called transformation. In cells (be it plant, animal, or humans) we call it transfection… but it’s always cells in culture in petri dishes.. not immediately into a living body.
When you run in vivo studies (aka studies on an organism that is alive) the only way to do so is to create the organism from scratch using transgenics via totipotency: first you take an egg cell and delete its nucleus, than you transfect the egg cell with the modified dna then you insert this cell into the womb of a surrogate mother so that the cell would develop into a blastocyst then a baby… then an adut that you would cross with another adult so that eventually you will receive your transgenic mouse after a couple of generations etc.. tl;dr you can’t give an organism naked dna aka a nucleus. You have to give it a transplant so that its body would start reading the new dna. The only other way is to clone that human via transgenics… aka making a new baby Furuta and waiting for him to become an adult which would take years.
So as a summary, Kanou, in this case, was only saying Furuta was also given the same treatment Kaneki and the others were given… and when he said Kaneki consumed the nucleus, he was not referring to Furuta per se, but to the oggai children that also have Rize’s nucleus/dna.
B- Furuta’s Nucleus is Special
In this case, it could be that Furuta was given a special transplant operation. Please note that, as discussed in case A, and since now we agree that there is no way that Furuta was given naked dna aka nucleus because this is impossible scientifically (if it were possible life would have been much easier for researchers), we can now conclude that Furuta underwent a transplant surgery and this can be confirmed by the scar left on his chest.
we don’t really know when the transplant operation took place which makes it hard to analyze how special the operation Furuta had. The earlier in the series the operation happened, the less resources Kanou had. The later the operation happened in the series, the more information Kanou had, the more special the transplant operation was.
If the operation was advanced, Furuta would have received cells from Rize that are more potent than the cells received by the other subjects. Please note that since Kaneki received Rize’s kidney, he basically received unipotent stem cells aka stem cells that can only differentiate to kidney cells. Because the kidney contains ghoul genes then eventually Kaneki’s body was filled with rc cells that can give other types of potent cells. Furthermore, he cannibalized, increasing the total number of his stem cells.
If the cells that Furuta received are indeed special and better than the cells received by the other subjects, than Kanou managed to find the multipotent/pluripotent cells from Rize and gave them to Furuta. They may even contain pluripotent cells (though I personally believe the oggai had those too). This operation can grant Furuta a way to regenerate his dying body. Being a garden child, he could be one of those who are dying from complications different than those Arima had… possibly even leading to an even more pre-mature death. Him receiving the transplant, on top of being a half-human would naturally further shorten his lifespan (telomere shortening etc)… so receiving pluripotent or totipotent stem cells could be a way to hinder the decay of his body.
Eventually, if Kaneki were to consume whatever Furuta has, it will only contribute more to his new monstrous state.
Finally, answering the first anon’s question about Furuta dying.. no because cells divide and turn over, so even if Kaneki ate part of Furuta, Furuta’s body regenerated and still contains 100s of copies of that nucleus.
Hey so you seem like you've been pretty stressed out lately so please feel free to ignore this message if you're not up for talking or whatever (hope you're feeling better)! Your TG genetics posts are always so cool and I was just wondering if you had any thoughts/theories about #DragonKaneki from a biological perspective? Do you think he's past the point of returning from this current form?
Hello and thank you for your concern!I haven’t written much about this before because it will take months to explain the entire details, but Ishida-sensei has been referencing cancer biology over and over again through his explanations of kagune, rc pathways, telomeres, and aging. If I ever have the time, I promise I will explain this in greater details.
Kaneki’s current form is due to a rapid expansion of RC cells (tumor-like formation)… this explains the gigantic transformation that is both uncontrollable and rapid. Cancer cells are immortal aka they will continue to divide infinitely as long as a source of nutrient and oxygen is available (leading to angiogenesis). Hence, because these cells continue to grow indefinitely, they will occupy a huge space and thus need to migrate/override other tissues (metastasis). This is what is happening in Kaneki’s body right now. He consumed most of the oggai children who were made from Rize (Rize’s kakuhou is suggested to have a special ability). This lead to him losing his human-like form, as his rc cells continue to divide and expand leading to his current monstrous shape.
I do think there must be a way for him to go back (huge supply of rc suppressants, depleting his ressouces - though this will be close to impossible because you cant evacuate all the population in time, etc..). I wonder how this will be handled by sensei. As for Kaneki to be able to consciously go back to his human-like form, I don’t think this is a possibility at this point.
While looking through your tg genetics tag I found an ask about whether ghouls can become humans and I have this theory. To make a ghoul human it would be needed complete removal of the kokahou and treatment with some form of RC cell suppressor drug. But the treatment should continue throughout this person's lifetime because if the treatment stops the RC cells will start to increase and that person will become a ghoul again. What are your thoughts on this and from what we know is it possible?
I don’t think this is possible much. As I explained before, there must more than one gene involved in ghoulification, and the genes contributing to the Kakuhou formation are not the only ones that make someone a ghoul. I think if you really want to turn a ghoul to being human (reversing evolution), you have to knockout every single ghoul gene. Sometimes, this might not be even enough, and you have to knock-in a human gene (restoring the ability to digest human food).
Since experimentation on humans and gene therapy is greatly limited because of ethics and religion, this will probably never be achieved.
I love your idea though as a way to “control” ghoulism rather than completely turn a ghoul into a human. Nonetheless, this would probably lead the ghoul to die eventually. Even if you treat them with RC suppressants, they still need food to survive. As long as they dont have the genes for making enzymes to digest human food, they would still need to eat human flesh… which is basically the entire problem with ghoulism: how do you stop ghouls from feeding off humans?
I think I will finally, finally, start writing that ghoul biology/ghoul genetics log with multi-series chapters that I promised you, over and over again, that I will write one day.
I am sorry for procrastinating doing this, especially that I had my thesis to write & experiments to finish in record time, plus work etc.. and then being so overwhelmed with science that I needed some time away from all scientific writing/readings etc...plus hectic jobs & teaching etc..
The issue is that I pretty much forgot what I need to write about in details as all of those issues make perfect sense to me (and I even predicted they would happen before they actually did). This is why I welcome you to send me asks that I can use to write a complete log of relevant matters to explain. I won’t be replying to your asks individually, but rather use them to make a list of stuff that are still unclear from my previous metas, or from newer chapters. Your asks can include anything relevant to
ghoul biology
ghoul genetics
human biology
human genetics
hybrids biology
hybrid genetics
kagune
kakugan
pregnancy
premature aging
transplant
quix operation
etc
Pretty much these are the aspects I need to write about but like I already did and they are clear in my head. So if your questions are more specific, it will help me write better.
Of course, I will be re-reading the manga to see what issues come up, but if you are perplexed about a certain issue in specific, kindly feel free to send me an ask off or on anon mode, or in the chat, or even on twitter (or skype though I suck with this).
I can’t promise how quick I can be in writing all those logs since finding the best way to simplify a complex concept is not easy. Most probably I will also have some mutuals “proofread” my writing just to make sure my explanations make sense to people outside the field.... but I will try my best to be consistent and efficient :)
