First Stable Semisynthetic Organism Created (topic: semisynthetic life) by 1kiki

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First Stable Semisynthetic Organism Created (topic: semisynthetic life)

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Sunday, February 19, 2017 13:19
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Thursday, February 9, 2017 2:46 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2017/01/first-stable-semisynth
etic-organism-created

First Stable Semisynthetic Organism Created

Life's genetic code has only ever contained four natural bases. These bases pair up to form two "base pairs"--the rungs of the DNA ladder--and they have simply been rearranged to create bacteria and butterflies, penguins and people. Four bases make up all life as we know it.

Until now. Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have announced the development of the first stable semisynthetic organism. Building on their 2014 study in which they synthesized a DNA base pair, the researchers created a new bacterium that uses the four natural bases (called A, T, C and G), which every living organism possesses, but that also holds as a pair two synthetic bases called X and Y in its genetic code.

TSRI Professor Floyd Romesberg and his colleagues have now shown that their single-celled organism can hold on indefinitely to the synthetic base pair as it divides. Their research was published January 23, 2017, online ahead of print in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We've made this semisynthetic organism more life-like," said Romesberg, senior author of the new study.

While applications for this kind of organism are still far in the future, the researchers say the work could be used to create new functions for single-celled organisms that play important roles in drug discovery and much more.

Building a Unique Organism

When Romesberg and his colleagues announced the development of X and Y in 2014, they also showed that modified E. coli bacteria could hold this synthetic base pair in their genetic code. What these E. coli couldn't do, however, was keep the base pair in their code indefinitely as they divided. The X and Y base pair was dropped over time, limiting the ways the organism could use the additional information possessed in their DNA.

"Your genome isn't just stable for a day," said Romesberg. "Your genome has to be stable for the scale of your lifetime. If the semisynthetic organism is going to really be an organism, it has to be able to stably maintain that information."

Romesberg compared this flawed organism to an infant. It had some learning to do before it was ready for real life.

In stepped TSRI Graduate Student Yorke Zhang and Brian Lamb, an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow in the Romesberg lab at the time of the study. Together, they helped develop the means for the single-celled organism to retain the artificial base pair.

First, Zhang and Lamb, co-first authors of the study, optimized a tool called a nucleotide transporter, which brings the materials necessary for the unnatural base pair to be copied across the cell membrane. "The transporter was used in the 2014 study, but it made the semisynthetic organism very sick," Zhang explained. The researchers discovered a modification to the transporter that alleviated this problem, making it much easier for the organism to grow and divide while holding on to X and Y.

Next, the researchers optimized their previous version of Y. The new Y was a chemically different molecule that could be better recognized by the enzymes that synthesize DNA molecules during DNA replication. This made it easier for cells to copy the synthetic base pair.

A New Use for CRISPR-Cas9

Finally, the researchers set up a "spell check" system for the organism using CRISPR-Cas9, an increasingly popular tool in human genome editing experiments. But instead of editing a genome, the researchers took advantage of CRISPR-Cas9's original role in bacteria.

The genetic tools in CRISPR-Cas9 (a DNA segment and an enzyme) originated in bacteria as a kind of immune response. When a bacterium encounters a threat, like a virus, it takes fragments of the invader genome and pastes them into its own genome--a bit like posting a "wanted" poster on the off chance it sees the invader again. Later, it can use those pasted genes to direct an enzyme to attack if the invader returns.

Knowing this, the researchers designed their organism to see a genetic sequence without X and Y as a foreign invader. A cell that dropped X and Y would be marked for destruction, leaving the scientists with an organism that could hold on to the new bases. It was like the organism was immune to unnatural base pair loss.

"We were able to address the problem at a fundamental level," said Lamb, who now serves as a research scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Their semisynthetic organism was thus able to keep X and Y in its genome after dividing 60 times, leading the researchers to believe it can hold on to the base pair indefinitely.

"We can now get the light of life to stay on," said Romesberg. "That suggests that all of life's processes can be subject to manipulation."

A Foundation for Future Research

Romesberg emphasized that this work is only in single cells and is not meant to be used in more complex organisms. He added that the actual applications for this semisynthetic organism are "zero" at this point. So far, scientists can only get the organism to store genetic information.

Next, the researchers plan to study how their new genetic code can be transcribed into RNA, the molecule in cells needed to translate DNA into proteins. "This study lays the foundation for what we want to do going forward," said Zhang.

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Thursday, February 9, 2017 11:56 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

That's terrifying.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, February 10, 2017 12:45 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I agree.

And while people squabble over the size of Trump's hands; or watch, rapt, the comings and goings of Kim Kardashian, the world has already entered science fiction.

In the future I'll post a compilation about all the places and ways AI is being deployed.

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Friday, February 10, 2017 1:31 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I remember thinking we'd reached Science Fiction the first time I saw a video conference, and again when we saw Forrest Gump shaking JFK's hand. Those things happened more than 20 years ago now. (Remember when they made it look like Arnold died in The Running Man?). It's hard to believe stuff on the news anymore, even if you see actual footage of it.

I don't have a link to an article or anything, but I read somewhere that Steven Hawkning had a call out in general to the "Scientific Community" to halt any further research into Artificial Intelligence because he is convinced that the only possible outcome of that would be something along the lines of the Terminator series.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, February 18, 2017 11:39 PM

DREAMTROVE

Huh, just like a story i wrote years ago.

Alas, what we're most likely to create is a bioweapon that will exterminate enough of us for civilization to collapse.

Couple things I've noticed.

1) We put most of our effort into building weapons

2) Those weapons primarily hit close to home

Currently dying in bed, infected with a genetically engineered bioweapon.

If we were a smart species, we'd do a lot better, and make some fantastic creation, but really we'll make the burnout suicide plague. Or already have.

Please, more like this. enough of these politicses.

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Sunday, February 19, 2017 12:45 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:
Huh, just like a story i wrote years ago.

Alas, what we're most likely to create is a bioweapon that will exterminate enough of us for civilization to collapse.

Couple things I've noticed.

1) We put most of our effort into building weapons

2) Those weapons primarily hit close to home

Currently dying in bed, infected with a genetically engineered bioweapon.

If we were a smart species, we'd do a lot better, and make some fantastic creation, but really we'll make the burnout suicide plague. Or already have.

Please, more like this. enough of these politicses.

I think we're more likely to create a bio-weapon that eliminates enough of us to keep civilization going. I have heard about some program called "Agenda something" that is planning for something like this.

As much as some people like to whine about climate change, they do have a point. We can't keep traveling down roads we do when we've got a world population of 7 billion people and growing.

What's your biggest carbon footprint? You're children. The more you have the larger it gets, and the more they have, etc...

There comes a point in time when you have to be pragmatic about it. Ask yourself one simple question. Which is more terrifying? A man-made plague that wipes out 80% of the planet in the near future, or a world used up of all of its resources and unable to support any of us 100-200 years from now?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, February 19, 2017 9:03 AM

DREAMTROVE

21

Don't assume they know what they're doing and can carefully control whatever monster they create. They'll aim for 95% depopulation like they say, and they'll create zombie apocalypse. And they themselves will be the first on shouting "BRRAAAIINNSSS!"

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Sunday, February 19, 2017 11:32 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Yeah... 21. Did they just change the name to that or didn't they change it to something else?

Oh, I'm well aware that there's plenty of room for error there. That's why I don't think it's going to be something crazy like a zombie outbreak. I think it's likely something that is already happening to a lot of us with the stuff we consume. Maybe like in Michael Keaton's Batman regular everyday food items that us proles eat are changing things about our biology when mixed with the chem trails that are being sprayed by the planes.

It doesn't have to be much. Just something that would lower life expectancy and lower the chances of having children over time. People would freak out if everybody started dying at 30 years old or if no children were being born anymore, but if you gradually cut 10-15 years off 80% of the populations lifespan over a few generations and you cut the birth rate by about 3/4ths over the same amount of time, it could be done in a way that wouldn't raise a lot of suspicion with the proper media spin.

They could just say that the shortened life span was because of toxins that have built up in our water supply, and the lower birthrate could be attributed to the spread of information and people in general having much more responsible sex. For those actively trying, I already know a few people who can't or had to work at it a long time before they did have a child. You probably do too.

I don't like the idea of all of it, but something's gotta be done. I'd take the above options over a SARS type virus that really does take hold or genocide any day. The only thing I have a problem with is that there are some lucky assholes on top that are making the decisions of who is and isn't effected. This would be like a lottery that the lower 80-90% of us are forced to play while the top 10%-20% could go on living as they always do, with only the top .00001% even knowing it was happening in the first place.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, February 19, 2017 12:39 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
Yeah... 21. Did they just change the name to that or didn't they change it to something else?

Yeah, they renamed it "Sustainable Development"

I swear I'm not making this up.

Quote:

I think it's likely something that is already happening to a lot of us with the stuff we consume.

Yes, actually dying of one at the moment. Seven golden vials filled with the wrath of god and all, it's their playbook. But they've already nabbed several of their own by accident.

Quote:
Just something that would lower life expectancy and lower the chances of having children over time.

Yeah, but that implies that they knew what they were doing. Instead, they're playing God against, um, God. Evolution will take whatever they create and mutate it.

Quote:
They could just say that the shortened life span was because of toxins that have built up in our water supply

Which they're nicely adding real toxins. Sure, the Malthusians set up the economic lure, but seems the for profit cancer industry is doing it. Not just to kill you, but to take all your money at the same time, and matching funds from industry or govt.

Quote:
I don't like the idea of all of it, but something's gotta be done.

Yeah, like this one: Build a space ship and start colonizing planets. Or even Antarctica, or Canada. Instead, they're destroying the Earth to lower the # of humans it can support. They want to make sure anyone not related to them is killed off. Standard issue monkeys.

There's plenty of space right here. Anarctica, Canada, Russia, and reclaiming desert isn't all that difficult scientifically. It's being done all over. They just have priorities. "Kill the not-us monkeys"

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Sunday, February 19, 2017 1:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:
Yeah, like this one: Build a space ship and start colonizing planets. Or even Antarctica, or Canada. Instead, they're destroying the Earth to lower the # of humans it can support. They want to make sure anyone not related to them is killed off. Standard issue monkeys.

I think that's why I liked Firefly so much. If you haven't read it, you should read The Great Explosion. I'm not going to say that Joss ripped it off for Firefly, but there are a LOT of similarities. I think there might have even been something in there about juggling geese, or pretty close to it.

I'm not arguing anything you have to say on the issue. It's hard to come up with a proper solution to a major problem when you're part of the problem and you don't have any money or power or influence.

All we can do is buy the ticket and take the ride.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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