-> ,validPeriod= in 2010. Craig Venter created the first in the history of the bacteria of the genus Mycobacterium mycoides, controlled artificial, developed in the laboratory into the genome (pictured). Now gone a step further in the development of the artist creating in the laboratory a new life (THOMAS DEERINCK, NCMIR) 2 -> It has its premiere today in the weekly magazine" Science ". Researchers under the direction of master sequencing - prof. Craig Venter - they announced that they are able to create a body of genome reduced to the minimum necessary for survival and reproduction. In other words, to enable it to life! This new lightweight champion, as they say commentators. It consists of only 473 genes! Therefore, get to know the history of synthetic microbe, which got a little bit romantic name - Syn3.0. From top to bottom the artificial microbe in a minimalist version of the long excites evolutionary biologists and biotechnologists, who intend to add to his genes, one by one, to study their effects. "This is an important step to creating a living cell in which genome will be fully programmed" - writes in a commentary on the work of Prof.. Chris Voigt, a synthetic biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. But rightly notes that it will not be easy, considering that up to 149 genes function Syn3.0 remains unknown! The first task of scientists is thus to investigate the role of these genes, which will allow for new insights into the biological basis of life. The name Syn3.0 suggests that this is not the first synthetic life created by Venter, who now directs the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and is the founder of Synthetic Genomics, a biotech company comprised in San Diego, California. And rightly so. Venter many years ago chose the way that we today call "from top to bottom," that is, that he decided to piece by piece to strip life from what it is unnecessary. This method would reach the minimum number of genes needed a primitive cell to still be able to grow and multiply. He worked on a bacterium having the smallest known genome in the world, or mycoplasma (Mycoplasma genitalium), which is parasitic on the epithelium of genitals and in the respiratory system. Several years ago, he has determined what the minimum number of genes needed for its life, treated it as a recipe and tried to recreate these genes in the laboratory. In 2010, it succeeded. Earlier able to transfer genetic material from one bacterial cell to another, which previously removed the original genes. Here the combined both methods - artificial DNA (species M. mycoides) moved to "empty" cells of another species of mycoplasma - M. capricolum. Reconstructed or artificial genome was barely 580 thousand. nucleotides or "letters" that make up the nearly 520 "words" - genes that build DNA. What did Venter, was not at all easy. Even with the tremendous advancement of modern genetics, scientists are unable to synthesize the whole, even the smallest genome in one go. Therefore they form a short DNA fragments, which then laboriously composed. At the beginning of the scientists "benefited" from the cellular machinery of bacteria, which duplicate the newly created pieces. But when the DNA strand became slightly longer, he began to crumble. Works for several months stood. Venter but he was stubborn. Along with the entire staff of the world's top geneticists and biochemists found a solution - yeast. Cells these simple fungi cope well with mergers of large DNA fragments. It was enough to make them the four quadrants of the genome mycoplasma, yeast that linked them together. Transplanted genes worked and began to control the cell. And although only the genetic material in the synthetic famous geneticist insists that created the first artificial cell called Syn1.0. What is important and what is necessary In your current job prof. Venter, together with the other "leader" of the project prof. Clyde Hutchison decided to define the true minimum set of genes needed for life by removing those, which, as they thought, they are irrelevant. So again turned in the direction of mycoplasma and body Syn1.0. the team split genome Syn1.0 (consisting of 901 genes) into eight parts. At the beginning and end of each section of the scholars added identical markers of DNA that made the pieces were easy to find and cut out. It's allowed to treat these fragments as independent modules and remove them one by one and then insert M. capricolum, to see whether such truncated DNA is able to create a living cell. If the modified genome inoperable, scientists knew that they had to cut out a portion of the key to life genes (construct), and it should be restored. Researchers "had fun" or transposons (leaping genes that can build up on almost any piece of DNA), to see if one embeds them in some important gene and disrupt its functioning. And what will come of this. All this allowed them to systematically catch these genes that were either unnecessary, or their function is duplicated by another gene. Are you sure its design life easier for synthetic biologists, who will now continue to experiment with artificial life. A total of mikromikrob has 531 thousand. principles, slightly less than is M. genitalium (600 thousand. bases). But this bacterium grows so slowly that cell population needs a few weeks to double. Meanwhile Syn3.0 opposite - have doubling times every three hours, suggesting that this is not due to lean DNA. It was created genome as small as soon as possible today. The final version of the work of scholars includes 473 genes - genes less than any capable of self-replicating cells known in nature. Perhaps most importantly, research has shown that some genes initially classified as "irrelevant" in fact perform important functions, being in pairs with the other genes. To such a pair to work, to maintain a minimum genome they must be preserved both genes. It also turned out that the minimal genome created by the researchers does not require modifying genes or DNA encoding most of these lipoproteins. On the other hand, must have almost all the known genes involved in the reading of genetic information, and those designed to protect genetic information that has remained unchanged for generations. The researchers also tried to design a life from scratch without selecting him "from mountains". This project prof. Venter implement two teams, each of which has the same task: to use all the available knowledge about the genome to design a hypothetical minimum bacterial chromosome. The proposals of both teams were artificially synthesized and "transplanted" to the M. capricolum to check whether this method can actually "produce" the body. - The most important message is that ... that we could not - said prof. Venter. - I must admit that I was surprised. It is clear that our current knowledge of the biology is not enough to sit down and design a living organism, and then build it from scratch - he added. It is not is the end of After the first publication of Syn1.0 in 2010, I talked to prof. Venter, asked whether such microbes can already be considered as artificial life, when his DNA was "only" copied from another organism. - Paradoxically, much easier to define artificial life than is natural - explained then prof. Venter. - Created by our synthetic DNA taken control of the cell and transformed it into a new species of microbe. Each protein in the cell, is based on our record. In our view, this is an artificial life. And although we call them too synthetic, it is not a plastic cell, but living, replicating organism. However, everything in it has been programmed by a computer - he said. Today Syn3.0 more like real life. You can of course ask the question: why even create these microbes? The purpose of prof. Venter is to create a bacterium in which the DNA would be recorded by a normal microbes things performed. Scholar dreams for example. Of such producing biofuels, drugs. Proponents of artificial life also believe that it is not enough to "spin" the function of these organisms, which have a natural ability for example. Decomposing plastic. - We tried to do it in 50 years, with little success - he said in 2010. Prof. Venter. And today he argued: - This is not the ultimate minimal genome. 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Why so much look for?
Question: is this scholar offends the religious feelings of my compatriots,
taking on the role reserved for the creator?
Proud Catholic nation, you are reading this and do not grzmisz?
A .... I understand, but do not read you understand
waiting for an interpretation of your najmędrszej emanation and its propagandists Sunday.