Tyler Henderson

BIO 1610-009

Dr. Michaela Gazdik-Stofer

March 3, 2017

     Synthetic Biology describes the relatively new field of designing, engineering, and ultimately creating organisms. Last December Scripps research institute published results on their ongoing project to  integrate artificial nucleotides with natural DNA. That is to say, they aim to expand the 4 letter genetic code into 6, by adding artificial base pairs.

Back in 2014 Scripps published that they had found two additional possible nucleotides for DNA. Typically, DNA as found in nature uses the 4 nucleotides abbreviated A, T, G, and C. Scripps however created two Unnatural Base Pairs, (UBP) dNaMTP and d5SICSTP, for now abbreviated as X and Y respectively. Previously Scripps managed to not only pair these bases in DNA chains but got E Coli. bacteria to accept the base pairs in the cell itself. This however did not leave the bacteria  stable and the bacteria always died before it could reproduce. 

Their recent breakthrough however is that they have manged to integrate the X and Y base pairs with E Coli bacteria DNA such that it is  stable and able to reproduce. (so long as the unnatural X and Y bases are provided as they cannot produce it themselves) That means these bacteria can store genetic information using the first ever known 6 letter genetic code. 

The project has huge potential on many levels in the field of synthetic biology. Access to 2 additional means that rather then the previous 64 possible amino acids there are at least 134 possible amino acids that could be used to create entirely new proteins. New drugs could be created, or entirely new forms of artificial life with entirely new ways of accomplishing things. 

A more direct use/benefit of this research is that it could also make synthetic biology much more safe. Experiments have shown, as theory would predict, that without providing the semi-synthetic organisms (SSO) with a supply of the artificial bases, they are incapable of reproducing and quickly die. Since these chemicals are not found anywhere in nature it would make an outbreak of such organisms impossible. Even in synthetic biology projects that do not seek to use the new base pairs to create different capabilities for their organisms, they could be incorporated so that the organism cannot survive outside of a laboratory environment.

The breakthrough was largely possible thanks to the revolutionary CRISPR-CAS9 gene editing tool, a technology that goes hand in hand with the field of synthetic biology, and will likely be a key component in the further experiments Scripps has to develop the technology of SSOs.

Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/6/1317.abstract

TH