Mar 30, 2021 16:00:00

Artificial organisms that can proliferate by cell division are created

A joint study by

JC Venter Institute , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a unicellular synthetic organism 'JCVI-syn3A ' that divides and proliferates in the same way as normal cells. The team announced.

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell: Cell
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674 (21) 00293-2

Scientists built a perfectly self-replicating synthetic cell | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/synthetic-cell-division.html

The microscope image of JCVI-syn3A is available on YouTube.

Genes Necessary for Cell Division in Modern Bacterial Cells Identified --YouTube


This is not the first attempt to create an artificial bacterium. In 2010, the JC Venter Institute created 'JCVI-syn1.0 ', which removes natural DNA from a bacterium called Mycoplasma mycoides, which causes goat infections, and injects human-edited DNA.

Furthermore 2016, the research team based on the JCVI-syn1.0, nucleotide sequences (genomic) reduces to a minimum that can be grown in laboratory culture were injected DNA having only a total 473 kinds of genetic information JCVI- I created syn3.0. This JCVI-syn3.0 was able to continue cell division and proliferate, but there was a problem that cell division did not occur normally and the morphology changed significantly with each proliferation. Even if you look at the microscope image, you can see that the sizes are different.

Therefore, the research team designed a unicellular synthetic organism 'JCVI-syn3A' that suppresses morphological changes due to proliferation by adding 19 new types of genetic information to JCVI-syn3.0 and performs more normal cell division. ..

According to the research team, only seven genes are involved in the more regular execution of the cell division process, of which two genes, 'ftsZ' and 'sepF,' alter the physical properties of the cell membrane. It turns out that it has the function of making it possible to divide properly. However, it has not been completely elucidated which genes act on the mechanism of cell division, and the research team has made that elucidation a future research topic.

The research team said, 'We want to find out the basic design rules of life. If this JCVI-syn3A helps to clarify the design rules, we can take a step forward.' ..