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To make new proteins, you have to create new ribosomes, as it's they who interpret the RNA codons to stitch amino acids together. Bootstrapping a new ribosome i
by orthoxerox 8y ago
To make new proteins, you have to create new ribosomes, as it's they who interpret the RNA codons to stitch amino acids together. Bootstrapping a new ribosome is several magnitudes harder than constructing a synthetic DNA/RNA.
Actually, you don't even need new DNA letter to do that. DNA codons can encode 64 different amino acids (63, as one codon must encode the end of sequence), but only 20 amino acids are actually used.
Adding another amino acid is theoretically possible, but this would require rewriting the whole DNA to reencode, say leucine from CTG to another codon to assign CTG to some other acid.
- virusduck 8y agoI don't think you'd need entirely new ribosomes, assuming the new bases are relatively the same size as ATCG. What you'd need more of are aminoacyltransferases, which load amino acids onto tRNAs. You'd also need new tRNA's (probably not super hard), and I imagine you'd want new amino acids. But we don't even know how to predict how existing amino acid chains fold into functional proteins, so I'm not sure what the goal of making new amino acids would further. More likely, the new bases can be used as a higher-density data storage medium for those folks interested in making biological data stores.
- physicsyogi 8y agoSomeone could also replace the carbon with silicon.
- anticensor 8y agoSilicon/Bismuth biochemistry is way more limited than Carbon/Hydrogen Oxide biochemistry in terms of temperature range and stable compounds. Silicon/Hydrogen Sulfide biochemistry does not work at all because hydrogen sulfide does not have the point of least volume. biochemistries listed here are denoted as bonding atom/solvent pairs.