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Cambridge researchers have redesigned the microbial genetic code to create a synthetic cell with capabilities like nothing else in nature, expanding the possibilities for new materials from plastics to antibiotics.
At the core of all genetic processes is the ability to manipulate and edit DNA, but so far it has not been possible to change the 3 billion-year-old code by which DNA orders cells to form amino acid chains. they form the working molecules of life.
“There may be a revolution in biology,” said Jason Chin, head of the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory project.
“These bacteria can become factory renewable and programmable, creating many new molecules with new properties that can have benefits for biotechnology and medicine, including making new drugs like antibiotics.”
A landmark study published in the journal Science, the group is based on 2019 progress which created a version of the toilet E. coli a gut microbe with all its DNA – known as the genome – made up of laboratory chemicals.
Scientists have rewritten the genetic code for the new bacterium Syn61, which changes not only DNA, but also the cellular machinery that converts genes into biochemical products. Thus was born a new organism that grows E. coli but with additional properties.
The keys to the process are groups of two biochemical “letters” within DNA – A, T, C and G -. Each of these “codons” adds a specific amino acid to the cell in a growing protein chain. Since the beginning of life on Earth, all creatures store genetic information in this way.
Jason Chin proposes a variety of technology applications, including new drugs and biodegradable plastics © MRC-LMB
Since 64 codons are possible and there are only 20 naturally occurring amino acids, the genetic code has high redundancy. Cambridge scientists have used it to put back some codons to create different building blocks that do not exist in nature, allowing the cells to make all the proteins necessary for life.
It would be analogous to see the genetic code of nature as the keyboard of an English computer in which certain letters appear more than once. The Cambridge team, in fact, has converted a double A into a Greek alpha letter, a B surplus into a beta, etc., allowing it to be written in both Greek and English.
According to experiments, engineered bacterial cells can bind exotic monomers (molecular molecules) to new proteins and other large molecules known as polymers.
“We would like to use these bacteria to fold into structures and find and build long synthetic polymers that can create new classes of materials,” Chin proposed, and another application would be new polymers, such as biodegradable plastics.
Delilah Jewel and Boston College’s Abhish Chatterjee, two leading scientists not involved in the Cambridge study, said technologies using “unnatural building blocks” will unlock countless new applications, ”from the development of new biotherapy classes to biomaterials with innovative properties. ”
One aspect of the technology is that synthetic bacteria, due to viral infections, require the repetition of natural genetic processes in host cells.
“If a virus enters the cube of bacteria used to make certain drugs, it can destroy the entire range,” Chin explained. “Our altered bacterial cells can overcome this problem by being completely resistant to viruses.”
Chin highlighted the “great commercial potential” in the microbial engineering process, adding that talks were held to protect intellectual property.
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