Genome of Controversial Arsenic Bacterium Sequenced 56
Med-trump writes "One year ago a media controversy was ignited when Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues held a press conference to announce the discovery of a bacterium that not only survived high levels of arsenic in its environment but also seemed to use that element in its DNA. Last week, the genome of the bacterium, known as GFAJ-1, which gets its name from the acronym for 'Give Felisa a Job.' (No joke!), was posted in Genbank, the public repository of DNA sequences for all who care to take a look. But it doesn't settle the debate over whether arsenic is used in DNA."
Well, she got the job. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wolfe-Simon is now at working (sic) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) with John Tainer.
Good for her.
Re:Of course it isn't a joke (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forgot Sonic Hedgehog (SHH), an important protein used in development.
Which ends up being an unfunny problem for doctors, that have to explain to a mom that her baby's congenital malformation is caused by a "Sonic Hedgehog Mutation": http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7074/full/439266d.html [nature.com]
Re:Shouldn't it be fairly simple to determine that (Score:5, Interesting)
Mass spectrometry using ESI ionisation should be able to detect DNA bases with arsenium replacing phosphor in the 5' phosphoester bound to ribose. It should be trivial to distinguish free arsenic from incorporated arsenic.