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NASA-Funded Research Creates DNA-like Molecule to Aid Search for Alien Life
In a research breakthrough funded by NASA, scientists have synthesized a molecular system that, like DNA, can store and transmit information. This unprecedented feat suggests there could be an alternative to DNA-based life, as we know it on Earth – a genetic system for life that may be possible on other worlds.
This new molecular system, which is not a new life form, suggests scientists looking for life beyond Earth may need to rethink what they are looking for. The research appears in Thursday's edition of Science Magazine.
[...] The synthetic DNA includes the four nucleotides present in Earth life – adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine – but also four others that mimic the structures of the informational ingredients in regular DNA. The result is a double-helix structure that can store and transfer information.
[Steven] Benner's team, which collaborated with laboratories at the University of Texas in Austin, Indiana University Medical School in Indianapolis, and DNA Software in Ann Arbor, Michigan, dubbed their creation "hachimoji" DNA (from the Japanese "hachi," meaning "eight," and "moji," meaning "letter"). Hachimoji DNA meets all the structural requirements that allow our DNA to store, transmit and evolve information in living systems.
Also at NYT, Discover Magazine, and ScienceAlert.
Hachimoji DNA and RNA: A genetic system with eight building blocks (DOI: 10.1126/science.aat0971) (DX)
Related: Scientists Add Letters X and Y to DNA Alphabet
Scientists Engineer First Semisynthetic Organism With Three-base-pair DNA
How Scientists Are Altering DNA to Genetically Engineer New Forms of Life
Synthetic X and Y Bases Direct the Production of a Protein With "Unnatural" Amino Acids
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 23 2019, @07:59PM
It depends on the temperature range you're working on. At any particular range there aren't many good information storing linear molecules that are both stable enough, and unstable enough. And there are so many variables that it's hard to envision an alternative working system. You can bet, though, that if they find life in Titan, it won't be based on water and DNA. And DNA is quite unlikely...but that doesn't tell us what the reasonable alternative would be. We can guess that it will be only partially soluble in a non-polar solvent...but that doesn't narrow the field very much. We can guess that we're talking about some chain molecule, but THAT doesn't narrow the field much either.
So just saying it's different isn't very helpful.
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