4 ms·

Not really; essentially all DNA "really does" is code for RNA, which in turn codes for amino acid sequences that fold into proteins. As long as the RNA and ami

Not really; essentially all DNA "really does" is code for RNA, which in turn codes for amino acid sequences that fold into proteins. As long as the RNA and amino acid libraries are the same, it's just representing the same stuff with a different set of symbols. In practice, it's probably going to be used as tools for manipulating organisms for experimental purposes, since scientists can do things to the synthetic bases that can't be done to real ones (or that effect natural and synthetic bases differently.)

dnautics 10y ago
The biggest application will be introducing unnatural amino.acids into proteins.
- vivekd 10y ago
  This is what I'm wondering about, can RNA meaningfully make proteins using an instruction manual that contains molecules that it doesn't recognize? The scientists created an organism with new DNA molecules but there is nothing in the paper about whether RNA is actually recognizing and transcribing these new molecules and how the result of that looks. My guess is that it would be considered an error by the RNA and corrected but your parent suggest that the RNA is just treating it like it would one of the other four molecules with is also a possibility.
  - dnautics 10y ago
    correcting does happen at the tRNA stage and it's not as trivial as one might think[0], but the technology to incorporate unnatural amino acids using reengineered stop codons has been around for a while and presumably it will work with X and Y. Note that Romesburg (author of the DNA paper) was a postdoc in the Schultz lab, where he was originally working on this DNA stuff -- I was across the street > 10 years ago when they first got the DNA stuff to work in vitro. He got his own lab across the street and continued on the DNA stuff (but also other things). e coli: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v3/n4/full/nmeth864.html http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v3/n4/full/nmeth864.html yeast: http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007%2F978-1-61779-331-8_12 http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007%2F978-1-61779-331-... mammalian cells (very very very very very hard): http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v4/n3/full/nmeth1016.html http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v4/n3/full/nmeth1016.htm... [0] the trick is to steal a tRNA from an archaeon; scuttlebutt is that the postdoc on the paper stole the idea from the lab across the hall, which was actually working on that archaeon.

dnautics 10y ago

The biggest application will be introducing unnatural amino.acids into proteins.

vivekd 10y ago
This is what I'm wondering about, can RNA meaningfully make proteins using an instruction manual that contains molecules that it doesn't recognize? The scientists created an organism with new DNA molecules but there is nothing in the paper about whether RNA is actually recognizing and transcribing these new molecules and how the result of that looks. My guess is that it would be considered an error by the RNA and corrected but your parent suggest that the RNA is just treating it like it would one of the other four molecules with is also a possibility.
- dnautics 10y ago
  correcting does happen at the tRNA stage and it's not as trivial as one might think[0], but the technology to incorporate unnatural amino acids using reengineered stop codons has been around for a while and presumably it will work with X and Y. Note that Romesburg (author of the DNA paper) was a postdoc in the Schultz lab, where he was originally working on this DNA stuff -- I was across the street > 10 years ago when they first got the DNA stuff to work in vitro. He got his own lab across the street and continued on the DNA stuff (but also other things). e coli: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v3/n4/full/nmeth864.html http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v3/n4/full/nmeth864.html yeast: http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007%2F978-1-61779-331-8_12 http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007%2F978-1-61779-331-... mammalian cells (very very very very very hard): http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v4/n3/full/nmeth1016.html http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v4/n3/full/nmeth1016.htm... [0] the trick is to steal a tRNA from an archaeon; scuttlebutt is that the postdoc on the paper stole the idea from the lab across the hall, which was actually working on that archaeon.