Scientists Create E. Coli With Entirely Synthetic Genome

Gizmodo ^ | 05/14/2019 | Ryan F. Mandelbaum

[BenLurkin]

Building and replacing the large entire genome yet was just one goal of the team from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. They hoped that the resulting bacteria would use a reduced number of possible DNA base pair combinations in order to produce the 20 amino acids. In the future, the now-obsolete sequences might be used to produce never-before-seen amino acids and proteins.

Genetic code is written in four letters: A, T, C, and G, which represent the molecules adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. These nucleotides can arrange into 64 three-letter “codons,” most of which correspond to an amino acid, the building blocks of the proteins that allow life to function. All but two of the amino acids are encoded by multiple synonymous codons. The researchers wanted to see if they could rewrite the E. coli bacteria’s genome with fewer codons, like rewriting the dictionary but representing all hard “k” sounds with only the letter k, instead of sometimes using c or q as the English language does.

The researchers designed a genome where they replaced two codons that encode the amino acid serine with synonyms, and did the same with the stop codon, which tells cellular functions when to stop reading a strand of DNA while building a protein. Then, the researchers built their DNA using the various lab techniques already employed in synthetic biology. Finally, they had to replace the bacteria’s genetic material with the synthetic DNA. They couldn’t just transfer it all over—they had to break their genome into pieces, slowly transplanting bit by bit into living bacteria until they had replaced the entire E. coli genome...

[rightwingcrazy]

Strikes me as the equivalent of coopting a computer with new software. But you started with an already-built computer. Who built that?

[dp0622]

Not really sure it’s a threat refuting the existence of God.

Sometimes a science thread is just a science thread.

[Tucker39]

And if we believe that, they’ll tell us another one. Remember global warming? Remember “hide the decline”? They came from THE UK, with some collaboration from a few shysters in this country, such as the scurrilous Tom Watts at Penn State. Color me skeptical. IF they actually DID it, they merely bootlegged God’s already perfected genetic code. Like me making a balsa wood airplane and claiming equality with the Wright Bros.

[neverevergiveup]

“Strikes me as the equivalent of coopting a computer with new software. But you started with an already-built computer. Who built that?”

True. The other thing is that this isn't a ‘huge leap’ in genetic engineering. We've been inserting genes into E.coli for a long time. We've replaced nearly whole genomes in viruses multiple times - and use them as gene therapy vectors. This is just the same thing, generally, but using a bacterium instead of a virus. It's an exercise in ‘gee whiz’, ‘look a me’, ‘I did it first’. It's not, strictly speaking, scientific discovery.

[fidelis]

The secular (atheist) scientist says to God…

“Hey, we scientists have figured out how to make life from dirt, just as described in that book of Yours, Genesis.

God: Oh yeah?

Scientist: Yep

God: Show Me.

Scientist: No problem!

So, the scientist started to gather some dirt, and just as he was about to start working with it, he was interrupted…

God: Hold it, stop!!

Scientist: What?

God: What are you doing?

Scientist: I’m gathering some dirt to generate life, just as described in Your book.

God: Get your own dirt…

[William of Barsoom]

“...they were so busy asking themselves CLOUD they do it, that they never stopped to ask SHOULD they do it.”

[John S Mosby]

Great— as if there isn’t ENOUGH of actual E.Coli wreaking havoc on the guts of poor hygienic Americans as it is— they have to go and “synthesize” E.Coli.....

So we’ll have to test Coliform count in our water supplies (untreated and treated) for yet more E.Coli? So we won’t get the shiites from contaminated water— like, the runoff in inner city San Franscisco— human coliform.... all over the sidewalks and into waterways. But— the anal fixated fruitcakes have no problem with this— quite comfortable with offal and its “output”, disgusting mental cases that they are.

What possible use is synthetic E. Coli. And what hubris.

Unless they are going to cross breed synthetic E. Coli to put in poison genome sections which will kill any populations that might result-— and thus eliminate a worldwide misery causing pestilence from our food and water sources— this is a Waste of Time.

Why not create a self killing Salmonella and help the world out?

Here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/753931/ecoli-outbreak-illnesses-deaths-united-states/

[NonValueAdded]

Just because you can doesn’t mean you shoupd.

[sphinx]

Not really sure it’s a threat refuting the existence of God.

It's irrelevant to the origins of life debate. The odd thing, however, is that the materialist reductionists will argue that this sort of thing is evidence for evolution rather than design, because what scientists have been able to do in a lab with cutting edge science and equipment -- which place the scientist in the role of the designer -- might be done accidentally by nature through random mutation. Or so they assert.

Someone should do a science fiction movie in which our intrepid explorers land on a planet of robots. On this planet, the robots would mock the idea that they are designed, because that would imply a designer and possibly a governing purpose. They find this objectionable. They would acknowledge that there was an ancient robot legend of a designer and a prime directive, but they have rejected that in favor of the proper theory that they are the products of hurricanes hitting junkyards over eons of time.

When asked where the junkyards came from, they would reply with a multiverse theory that asserts that in an infinity of universes over an infinity of time, everything that can happen must happen, and some universes create junkyards. This is scientific and not a legendary "just so" story because it dispenses with the objectionable hypothesis of a designer.

Westworld could tiptoe up to these themes. If Michael Crichton were still alive, it probably would. The showrunners seem to have a different agenda. To date, it the show is treating conscience as an emergent property of complex systems, which is a contemporary reductionist device for "explaining" something by naming it.

[left that other site]

Synthetic E-Coli.

What Could POSSIBLY go wrong?

[Ciaphas Cain]

Can’t really figure how how they reconstructed anything. Given enough time a small crew of engineers can take schematics of a ‘57 Chevy and build one from scratch. But who drew up the schematics to begin with?

[aspasia]

What possible use is synthetic E. Coli.

It's about the synthesis, not the E. Coli.

[Billthedrill]

That one required patience. The E. coli genome has 5.44 x 10⁶ base pairs. That's a lot of cut-and-paste. The hypothesis was that changing the occurrence of three base pairs with their synonyms would not affect protein synthesis, but it appears to have done so:

The E. coli survived, though they grew slower and were longer, according to New York Times reporting.

That's the significant finding, the rest is showmanship. There will be some head-scratching over that one if it's repeatable, because it may help to explain why there are synonyms in the first place. Lovely, although I should imagine tedious, experiment.

[sparklite2]

Sometimes a science thread is just a science thread.
------------------

"Well, you know how it is, Charlie
Brown.  You win a few and you
lose a few."

"Sigh.  Wouldn't it be nice?"

[rightwingcrazy]

“Sometimes a science thread is just a science thread”

Had that in mind as well. Point being that even a complete understanding of the genetic code is just a baby step toward mastering the process of creating life. Even a bacterium is astonishingly complex, and much of that complexity is dedicated to the making of new bacteria. DNA is just a piece of that.

[John S Mosby]

whoopee— we can “synthesize” E.Coli all year long— multiple strains of it. We can also make wood alcohol from cellulosic sources— as FUEL, but we DON”T— because the Corn Lobby needs the ethanol subsidy.

The synthetic E. Coli, and its “synthesis” is of zero value. Except getting grant money. Play with the genome of a controllable risk bacteria— for what purpose? Is the world in some great need of E.Coli toxin produced by synthetic genomic creation?

[John S Mosby]

oh- almost forgot— we really “NEED” never before seen amino acids... so we can assume how they will be metabolized into what derivative compounds. Surely they’ll be safe, since no one has ever seen them before this un-natural process.

As someone has said here- “just because you can, doesn’t follow that your should!”.

[aspasia]

Again, it isn't synthetic E. Coli that they're after, it's the act of synthesis itself, which develops understanding of the genetic functions. E. Coli is a model organism. A good bit of our understanding of human DNA is gleaned from studying genetic activity in E. Coli..

[aspasia]

E. coli