Artificial life form given 'synthetic DNA'
UK scientists have created an artificial version of the stomach bug E. coli that is based on an entirely synthetic form of DNA. At the same time, Syn61 as they are calling it, has had its genetic code significantly redesigned. It's been done in a manner that will pave the way for designer bacteria that could manufacture new catalysts, drugs, proteins and materials.
[...] Syn61's 4 million genetic letters make this the largest entire genome to be synthesised from scratch. They were ordered in short segments from a laboratory supplies company, before being assembled into half-million-letter lengths in yeast cells by natural cellular machinery.
At this point, the genome engineers' job became a bit like a railway engineer's maintenance programme - replacing the E. coli genome piecewise - section by section - rather than all at once. "The bacterial chromosome is so big," team leader Jason Chin told the BBC, "we needed an approach that would let us see what had gone wrong if there had been any mistakes along the way." So it was only after each half-million-letter segment had been tested in partially synthetic bacteria that the eight segments were brought together in Syn61.
The approach is more cautious than that used by bio-entrepreneur, Craig Venter, whose microbial replicant based on the tiny organism Mycoplasma genitalium was presented to the world in 2010.
Also at PLOS, NYT, and Smithsonian.
Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1192-5) (DX)
Related Stories
University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) scientists have discovered several new related (dinuclear RuII) compounds which visualize and kill gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli (note - no word on whether it works on synthetic E.coli)
Bacteria are classified generally by what type of staining works on them using a method developed in the 1800's by Hans Christian Gram. 'Gram-negative' bacteria retain a stain color that shows them as a pinkish red coloring, these bacteria have cell walls that make it difficult to get drugs into them and many gram-negative bacteria have become significantly or even completely resistant to available drug treatments.
A new drug in the difficult gram-negative space is particularly important. Drug resistant bacteria already cause the deaths of over 50 thousand people a year in the US and EU alone, and as many as 10 million people a year could die worldwide every year by 2050 due to antibiotic resistant infections.
Doctors have not had a new treatment for gram-negative bacteria in the last 50 years, and no potential drugs have entered clinical trials since 2010.
The new drug compound has a range of exciting opportunities. As Professor Jim Thomas explains: "As the compound is luminescent it glows when exposed to light. This means the uptake and effect on bacteria can be followed by the advanced microscope techniques available at RAL.
"This breakthrough could lead to vital new treatments to life-threatening superbugs and the growing risk posed by antimicrobial resistance."
The studies at Sheffield and RAL have shown the compound seems to have several modes of action, making it more difficult for resistance to emerge in the bacteria.
Better yet
Mammalian cell culture and animal model studies indicate that the complex is not toxic to eukaryotes, even at concentrations that are several orders of magnitude higher than its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).
The researchers plan to test the compounds against additional multi drug resistant bacteria next.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:54PM (2 children)
Genetic Engineering/Biology is where computers were in the 80s. My bet is that this is going to be the next big thing.
How big? Straight out of sci-fi. e.g. Vat-grown bacteria replacing agricultural commodities as major foodstuffs, grow-in-place plastic/composite manufacturing, 40 step chemical synthesis reduced to put this and that in a bucket and shine a light on it, etc.
The tipping point for me was watching an undergrad dropout cook a gene therapy to cure (permanently) lactose intolerance in a lab simpler than my home kitchen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3FcbFqSoQY [youtube.com]
It will be an interesting time, I'm glad I get to live to see it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday May 28 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
Anti-aging, designer babies, chemputers and engineered yeasts producing illicit drugs. If there's money to be had, it will be done.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 29 2019, @12:39PM
...designer pathogens the like we've never seen before, oh the possibilities are (almost) endless.