The end of the world? Dr Franken-Venter? Nope.
Today’s issue of Science describes how a group of scientists led by Craig Venter have built an entire bacterial genome from scratch, i.e. starting with simple laboratory chemicals and finishing with a 582,970 base pair DNA chromosome. So is this the end of the world? Have mad scientists created a Frankenstein bug which will escape the laboratory and eat the world?
Nope.
For one thing, the molecule which has been synthesized is presently just that – an inert molecule of DNA. Not until it is inserted into a “hollow” bacterial host from which the DNA has been removed can it come “alive” and start to replicate itself and direct the activities of the cell.
But more importantly, this synthetic biology project is based on an existing organism (Mycoplasma genitalium), which has been around for a long time, so it’s not exactly new. Venter’s team has reproduced this reather than creating anything new.
Finally, some bacteria degrade explosives, others prefer boiling methanol – in other words, if it is possible, nature has already thought of it. So the article published today is nothing to lose sleep over. Of course, that doesn’t mean that at some point in the future those nasty terrorists won’t build a synthetic organism which is genuinely dangerous. But they’re not going to do it working in their garage – this is a government or large corporation-scale project which is the biological equivalent of putting a person on the moon. So if you want something to worry about, worry about climate change, your grades, or the stock market.
Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome. 2008 Science Published Online January 24, 2008
We have synthesized a 582,970 bp Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted “watermarks” at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping “cassettes” of 5 to 7 kb, assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb (“1/8 genome”), and 144 kb (“1/4 genome”), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments.
Related:
- Mycoplasma laboratorium, the first synthetic organism
- Ocean Viromes
- Cytoskeletal structure of Mycoplasma mobile
Tags: Bacteria, Biology, Biotechnology, Bioterrorism, Genetics, Microbiology, Science
I am sure this project was funded some twenty years ago and so concentrated on Mycoplasma. Unfortunatly, bacteriae are much smarter than us (Human). You have to understand the complex structure and multi-toxin producing bacteria (CA-MRSA) before we need to panic about this project.
I hope the investors of this project had anticipated this threat to mankind was brewing in the corner.