A semisynthetic organism engineered for the stable expansion of the genetic alphabet
Abstract
The genetic alphabet encodes all biological information, but it is limited to four letters that form two base pairs. To expand the alphabet, we developed synthetic nucleotides that pair to form an unnatural base pair (UBP), and used it as the basis of a semisynthetic organism (SSO) that stores increased information. However, the SSO grew poorly and lost the UBP under a variety of standard growth conditions. Here, using chemical and genetic approaches, we report the optimization of the SSO so that it is healthy, more autonomous, and able to store the increased information indefinitely. This SSO constitutes a stable form of semisynthetic life and lays the foundation for efforts to impart life with new forms and functions.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- February 2017
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 2017PNAS..114.1317Z