SYNTHORXLiving organisms have two sets of DNA base pairs—adenine paired with thymine and cytosine paired with guanine—that together encode the 20 amino acids used to make proteins in the cell. Now, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla, California, have introduced a synthetic base pair to Escherichia coli, greatly expanding the information DNA is able encode. DNA containing the novel base pair can replicate within the bacteria, according to a paper published today (May 7) in Nature. The work advances the goal of creating cells with synthetic DNA elements that can produce proteins made with an expanded set of amino acids.
“This is the first paper to show the possibility that living organisms can have really artificial DNA with [an] expanded genetic alphabet,” Ichiro Hirao, a synthetic biologist at the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies in Japan, wrote in an e-mail to The Scientist. Hirao was not involved in the study, but is also working to incorporate synthetic base pairs into living organisms.
“What we’ve done is successfully finally gotten a cell that stably harbors increased genetic information,” said study coauthor Floyd Romesberg, a synthetic biologist at TSRI. “What we want to do next, and what my lab is already working on, is . . . to retrieve that information.”
With the help of more than a dozen graduate students and postdocs, Romesberg spent the ...
