Synthetic life from Craig Venter
I am not an expert in biology, and when the hype around the Craig Venter synthetic cell arose, I could not immediately understand what the salt was. It has long been known that genome-engineers shred poor genes as they want, and make new organisms with predetermined properties, etc. I wanted to understand and understand what is really new there. Looked about this on the net. And so, in my superficial glance, it seems I understood. The bottom line is that previously, gene material synthesized by living cells was always taken for starting material and manipulations were performed on them. And now all the manipulations are carried out not with biological material in a test tube, but with a recorded in a computer and previously decrypted genetic code. Thus, the main task is to construct a real chromosome from separate nucleic bases (i.e., literally four cans with four original substances) and a real chromosome (even edited by a programmer-biologist or even a program) on a computer. activate it in the recipient cell. Biologists, correct, if something is wrong.
Of course, on the way to this result, the authors had to solve a huge number of both biological, technological, and organizational difficulties (and along the way and the solution of emerging ethical issues). Somehow it was necessary to reduce the inevitable errors in the process of producing DNA from bricks. It was necessary to choose the most suitable basic DNA sequence and the recipient cell. And most importantly, the synthetic cell obtained in this way must fully function and reproduce the offspring. The big problem was in identifying those places that can be painlessly changed, from vital sites, where changing a single base is fatal. Venter spoke at length about a three-month search for such a pinpoint error, which negated all efforts. All this took 15 years. Further details, I do not undertake to comment somehow - not an expert. You can read more in the presentation of a professional biologist and even hear directly from the author of the sensation (with Russian subtitles) .
It's funny, of course, because there is always a lot of garbage and inactive areas in the genome, you can write down any additional information inside that is not directly related to the biological activity of the cell. Look what it has already led to (quotes are taken from the links):
“... this is the first self-replicating species on the planet, the parent of which is a computer. It is also the first to have its own site, whose address is encoded within its genetic code. ”
')
“The genome has segments where it does not tolerate a single error and there are segments where huge blocks of DNA can be inserted. What we did, putting there "watermarks" ...
In fact, “in order to control, in order to distinguish the synthesized genome from the old, the authors of the article coded their names and email addresses in unimportant places”.
And finally, a joke on the occasion:
“The general programmer is reading the code:
// TODO: eti geny nado ubrat '. --Arhangel Gavriil »
Of course, on the way to this result, the authors had to solve a huge number of both biological, technological, and organizational difficulties (and along the way and the solution of emerging ethical issues). Somehow it was necessary to reduce the inevitable errors in the process of producing DNA from bricks. It was necessary to choose the most suitable basic DNA sequence and the recipient cell. And most importantly, the synthetic cell obtained in this way must fully function and reproduce the offspring. The big problem was in identifying those places that can be painlessly changed, from vital sites, where changing a single base is fatal. Venter spoke at length about a three-month search for such a pinpoint error, which negated all efforts. All this took 15 years. Further details, I do not undertake to comment somehow - not an expert. You can read more in the presentation of a professional biologist and even hear directly from the author of the sensation (with Russian subtitles) .
It's funny, of course, because there is always a lot of garbage and inactive areas in the genome, you can write down any additional information inside that is not directly related to the biological activity of the cell. Look what it has already led to (quotes are taken from the links):
“... this is the first self-replicating species on the planet, the parent of which is a computer. It is also the first to have its own site, whose address is encoded within its genetic code. ”
')
“The genome has segments where it does not tolerate a single error and there are segments where huge blocks of DNA can be inserted. What we did, putting there "watermarks" ...
In fact, “in order to control, in order to distinguish the synthesized genome from the old, the authors of the article coded their names and email addresses in unimportant places”.
And finally, a joke on the occasion:
“The general programmer is reading the code:
// TODO: eti geny nado ubrat '. --Arhangel Gavriil »
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/95356/
All Articles