Scientists Build Yeast With Artificial DNA (axios.com) 29
Alison Snyder reports via Axios: For more than 15 years, scientists have worked to build a complex cell with an entire genome built from scratch. This week they announced a major milestone: They've created synthetic versions of the 16 chromosomes in a yeast cell and successfully combined some of them in one cell. The feat is revealing new information about fundamental processes in cells, and it is a key step toward some scientists' vision of creating programmable cellular factories to produce biofuels, materials, medicines and other products.
The changes researchers made to yeast chromosomes fall into three main categories: increasing stability of the genome, repurposing codons (genetic sequences that carry instructions for reading DNA or RNA) and introducing a system that allows scientists to make millions of cells, each with different genetic properties. "A big problem is a lot of the things you want to make are actually toxic to the cells," [says Benjamin Blount, a synthetic biologist at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. and co-author of some of the scientific papers in a series published this week in Cell and Cell Genomics detailing the work]. With the system that reshuffles the genome and effectively mimics evolution, scientists can make many variants of yeast and pick the ones "that are really good at growing in the presence of what you're trying to make." Then, they're able to look at what's happened to their genomes to enable that particular strain to grow and make the desired product, and use that genetic information to develop strains of yeast suited for an industrial process.
The chromosomes still have to be combined in one cell that can survive, which means they have to be "basically indiscernible" from natural chromosomes in terms of the cell's fitness, Blount says. That required a lot of debugging of the genome, similar to what's done for computer code. One team was able to combine multiple chromosomes in one cell and it survived and reproduced, demonstrating a mechanism for bringing them together. Building the genomes -- and seeing when the cell doesn't work as expected as the result of one change or another -- has revealed fundamental information about genome biology, Blount says. For example, the team identified sequences in genes that interrupted a key process in the cell and led to mitochondria dysfunction, which is involved in some human diseases.
The changes researchers made to yeast chromosomes fall into three main categories: increasing stability of the genome, repurposing codons (genetic sequences that carry instructions for reading DNA or RNA) and introducing a system that allows scientists to make millions of cells, each with different genetic properties. "A big problem is a lot of the things you want to make are actually toxic to the cells," [says Benjamin Blount, a synthetic biologist at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. and co-author of some of the scientific papers in a series published this week in Cell and Cell Genomics detailing the work]. With the system that reshuffles the genome and effectively mimics evolution, scientists can make many variants of yeast and pick the ones "that are really good at growing in the presence of what you're trying to make." Then, they're able to look at what's happened to their genomes to enable that particular strain to grow and make the desired product, and use that genetic information to develop strains of yeast suited for an industrial process.
The chromosomes still have to be combined in one cell that can survive, which means they have to be "basically indiscernible" from natural chromosomes in terms of the cell's fitness, Blount says. That required a lot of debugging of the genome, similar to what's done for computer code. One team was able to combine multiple chromosomes in one cell and it survived and reproduced, demonstrating a mechanism for bringing them together. Building the genomes -- and seeing when the cell doesn't work as expected as the result of one change or another -- has revealed fundamental information about genome biology, Blount says. For example, the team identified sequences in genes that interrupted a key process in the cell and led to mitochondria dysfunction, which is involved in some human diseases.
So What's Next For Science? (Score:4, Funny)
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Not sure how you think conflating trans issues with a serious risk of DNA escaping into the enviroment with unknown and potentially serious consequences makes you sound intelligent.
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LOL dude DNA is everywhere .. no way humans can make DNA that's any worse for us than nature makes to try to bump us off like it did 99.9% of Earth's species.
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Wow, the staggering naivity.
Flu and ebola have never combined in nature, but they could be in a lab.
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Wow, the staggering naivity.
Flu and ebola have never combined in nature, but they could be in a lab.
Okay, Bernadette. But you're misremebering. It was ebola and the common cold [youtube.com].
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As a rule I try not to argue with people who don't have any biology background .. but here goes, First, making a combined flu+ebola would have to be super deliberate and take extensive work .. you can't just mix the two and voila -- supervirus. And that's assuming it would even retain potency .. which is highly unlikely if you know anything about how the two viruses work, the types of cells they target and don't target, and how the immune system deals with them. Anyway, if the two could combine easily and m
Re: So What's Next For Science? (Score:2)
No biology background like you? As for "super" deliberate (hows that different to deliberate?) , well duh! Ya think?!
Seems you know fuck all about microorganisms sharing their DNA but that's ok, you've already proven you're an idiot so no more harm done.
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Organisms share DNA .. big woop. You are an idiot if you think anything in the yeast genes can kill us. They didn't encode Ebola in the yeast chromosomes you idiot. What gene do you think is in that yeast that will kill us?
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*sigh*
It doesn't need to kill us directly fuckwit, it can subtley alter an ecosystem which has knock on effects.
Keep digging that hole, let me know when you see kangaroos.
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Sorry I can't get over the level of stupidity in your comment .. I really can't. DNA escaping into the environment???
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I can't get over your utter lack of anything resembling a clue. Why do you think bio research labs are so heavily locked down?
FFS, grow a brain cell when you get a chance.
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conservatives will have a fit over this one.
Opposition to GMOs is mostly from liberals.
Rule of thumb:
If science comes from corporations (GMOs, nuclear power), liberals oppose it.
If science comes from the government (vaccines, climate change), conservatives oppose it.
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Which government is making vaccines again?
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You can brew your beer by making wort from GMO barley and hops, then fermenting it using yeast with synthetic DNA. Do it all with fluoridated water for maximum purity of essence.
Re:So What's Next For Science? (Score:4, Interesting)
Beer brewed from artifcial DNA?
Gene edited beer yeast is already a thing: https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com]
You can also get florecent yeast and even a kit to make your own by inserting a gene from a jellyfish: https://www.the-odin.com/ge-ye... [the-odin.com]
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Virtual beer tastes like a wish sandwich [youtube.com].
Hmm... (Score:2)
They're working really hard to mitigate the things that could go wrong making this so we can get to the "What could go wrong?" part once they succeed.
Not to take anything away from great work (Score:2)
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Been watching the Life On Our Planet series on Netflix and one thing that it's starting to drive home are the almost incomprehensible timescales involved. As such, I'm not sure you'll be able to demonstrate "natural" transitions from one state to the next when it's entirely possible that a single transition took 100 million years or so.
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But if I'm to factor out an ntelligent Design" actor and let the elements speak for themselves, some sort of software simulation at least seems in order.
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Been some interesting developments around assembly theory...
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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I think this is possible (Score:2)
To make a software simulation of formation of the building blocks of life that is. From primitive chemical forms or what I would call less organized chemical forms and elements. I think there are multiple steps along the way and it probably involves periods either regular or irregular of environmental stresses, heat, saturation with energies and elements. Repeated, like cooking. Over long times. But not that long. And we can compress them mathematically.
Now to address your not so subtle inferences.
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But I do think that life pops up wherever the conditions are such that the progression of complication can occur and be preserved and carried on.
That's the sticky wicket, innit?
If life is just so much probabilistic chemical interaction, then those interactions seem like they ought to recur, given a literally universal sample space.
Also, we really haven't even started looking in any substantive way.
My (vaguely theistic) prediction is that we're going to find a whole lot of loneliness out there, because it seems we may have a unique sweet spot here. Which really chafes the materialists in the audience.
I welcome are new Yeast Overlords! (Score:2)
I know some have been waiting / wanting their new animal totem hybrid humans to be our new Overlords. But, they are inferior to the Yeast Overlords! Animal & human hybrids are so last decade, and will accomplish nothing, you can take my word for it. Yeast is the future for us!
Was
They have *not* created an artificial yeast cell (Score:5, Interesting)
The article is poorly written, and seems confusing on this point.
Teams *have* created artificial versions of the 16 chromosomes, but they have not yet successfully combined them into a functioning artificial cell.
Here's a better source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
Was this article written by AI? (Score:4)
I hate these bullet-point articles, with points like "How it works" and "Why it matters." The specific bullet points don't really contribute to the story. Worse, the paragraphs after each point don't actually address what the bold bullet point text claims. For example
Under "What's Happening" it says "The building of each one of these chromosomes is an absolutely mammoth task." That's a statement that doesn't tell me anything about "what's happening." Also "In the past, scientists modified individual genes, not entire chromosomes." is unrelated to the bullet point.
Each bullet point seems relevant, but is followed by more or less random text, so it's impossible to skip down to the sections you care about (presumably the goal of a bullet-point organization).
My eyes glaze over when I see one of these articles.
Here's a better story about this achievement: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]