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Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome (2016)
- will_wright 3y agoI remember reviewing this paper with my lab when it was published! Very interesting work
- XorNot 3y agoMakes you wonder if there's a possible set of RNA enzymes which could be isolated exist would be able to bootstrap the cytoplasmic environment as well. The ultimate experiment would obviously be to go from a surfactant micelle in an amino acid soup to a functional cell synthesizing proteins using just genetic code or code precursors.
- samus 3y agoThat experiment probably can't be run end-to-end because evolution took an enormous time to cook up our biochemistry from the primordial soup. I could also be completely wrong, and we learn that simplistic cells can arise on short timescales if there is no competition from existing life.
- XorNot 3y agoMy thought was that if you just intentionally dumped the working components into the relevant areas, you would get a cell in short order - i.e. there's a combination of RNAzymes which must've existed on the transition from RNA-world to proteins, to DNA coding. Basically: evolution trial and error'd, but it stands to reason that we could just sit there injecting the next step which worked each time.
- mfld 3y agoA 2022 review on synthetic genomics from the same team is to be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.06.046 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.06.046 .
- flobosg 3y agoFollow-up study tracking the evolution of this minimal cell: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06288-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06288-x