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Four New DNA Letters Double Life’s Alphabet
Scientific American ^ | February 22, 2019 | Matthew Warren, Nature magazine

Posted on 02/27/2019 5:29:17 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals—guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively.

Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language that seems to store and transcribe information just like natural DNA.

In a study published on 22 February in Science, a consortium of researchers led by Steven Benner, founder of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Alachua, Florida, suggests that an expanded genetic alphabet could, in theory, also support life.

“It’s a real landmark,” says Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. The study implies that there is nothing particularly “magic” or special about those four chemicals that evolved on Earth, says Romesberg. “That’s a conceptual breakthrough,” he adds.

Normally, as a pair of DNA strands twist around each other in a double helix, the chemicals on each strand pair up: A bonds to T, and C bonds with G.

For a long time, scientists have tried to add more pairs of these chemicals, also known as bases, to this genetic code. For example, Benner first created ‘unnatural’ bases in the 1980s. Other groups have followed, with Romesberg’s lab making headlines in 2014 after inserting a pair of unnatural bases into a living cell.

But the latest study is the first to systematically demonstrate that the complementary unnatural bases recognise and bind to each other, and that the double helix that they form holds its structure.

(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet; Conspiracy; Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: adenine; aminoacids; basepairs; bases; cytosine; dna; genetics; godsgravesglyphs; guanine; helixmakemineadouble; letters; newletters; science; thexfiles; thymine; xfiles
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1 posted on 02/27/2019 5:29:17 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: 100American; 3D-JOY; abner; Abundy; AGreatPer; Albion Wilde; AliVeritas; alisasny; ...

Thoughts?

PING!


2 posted on 02/27/2019 5:30:11 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Modern feminism: ALL MEN BAD!!!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Should some knowledge remain unknown?


3 posted on 02/27/2019 5:30:57 PM PST by buckalfa (I was so much older then, but I'am younger than that now.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Great. Now see what codons they form, (among themselves or *with* the existing four bases), what they code *for*, and the relative affinitiees of different substrates one to another.

Oh, and how do they react to methylation?

4 posted on 02/27/2019 5:32:00 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This could explain Nancy pelousy


5 posted on 02/27/2019 5:32:22 PM PST by faithhopecharity ( “Politicians are not born; they are excreted.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

What could go wrong?


6 posted on 02/27/2019 5:37:24 PM PST by LibertyOh
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Why screw with what exists? Why do you need synthetic base pairs when natural ones work as they were were created to?


7 posted on 02/27/2019 5:38:00 PM PST by Fungi
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“It’s moving. It’s alive!!”


8 posted on 02/27/2019 5:39:13 PM PST by Ken H (2019 => The House of Representin')
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Interesting, with big implications in the data storage and retrieval biz. Not so much in life functions, though, at least not yet:

The researchers could potentially use their synthetic DNA to create novel proteins as well as RNA.

The problem is: do they code for anything? That is, do they make proteins? Can we incorporate them into tRNA attached to anything that binds?

It's pretty exciting stuff, actually, but building a meaningful protein isn't just getting a sequence right, it's figuring out how the thing folds into a useful morphology. We're taking baby steps here, but they're forward.

9 posted on 02/27/2019 5:40:00 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: buckalfa

Should some knowledge remain unknown?


It is a predicament. Until you know
something, it cannot be knowledge.
It’s unknown. But as soon as you know it,
voila, knowledge! And there’s no going back.
But if you don’t know it yet, it isn’t
knowledge, and nobody knows.
Or something.


10 posted on 02/27/2019 5:41:43 PM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

What could possibly go wrong?


11 posted on 02/27/2019 5:41:57 PM PST by gundog ( Hail to the Chief, bitches!)
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To: buckalfa

No. Because it will eventually be learned. Also the potential for good is too great to ignore. Curing cancer. Creating new forms of life . Who knows maybe that’s how we arrived on earth. ETs may have sent our building blocks to earth and let the magic happen.


12 posted on 02/27/2019 5:46:22 PM PST by for-q-clinton (This article needs a fact checked)
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To: faithhopecharity

Her extra letters are W, E, I, R and D.


13 posted on 02/27/2019 5:46:52 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Modern feminism: ALL MEN BAD!!!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

also L I A and R


14 posted on 02/27/2019 5:47:21 PM PST by faithhopecharity ( “Politicians are not born; they are excreted.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: buckalfa

>>Should some knowledge remain unknown?<<

Only for a while.

But remember what the great Bob Seger sang; “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”


15 posted on 02/27/2019 5:47:59 PM PST by freedumb2003 (As always IMHO)
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To: Billthedrill

“Oops. Looks like we created a prion! Everybody evacuate the lab now!”


16 posted on 02/27/2019 5:48:22 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Modern feminism: ALL MEN BAD!!!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

So, it seems that we’re 4-bit life forms; and, we may be rendered obsolete by 8-bit life forms. Or not.


17 posted on 02/27/2019 5:50:01 PM PST by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

And yet there’s still no “gay gene”...

Bummer.


18 posted on 02/27/2019 5:51:54 PM PST by OrangeHoof (Trump is Making the Media Grate Again)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I don’t know much about DNA but I did score well on the GCAT test.


19 posted on 02/27/2019 5:52:09 PM PST by SamAdams76
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To: Billthedrill

I have read that proteins find the correct folding pattern way faster than pure chance would allow, indicating the proper folding is itself somehow encoded in the DNA. Further a misfolded protein is a prion and is what causes conditions like CJD, Kuru, and Fatal Insomnia.


20 posted on 02/27/2019 5:55:01 PM PST by LukeL
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