Mitochondrial genome from a test tube

Scientists artificially synthesized the mitochondrial genome<url>
Scientists have managed to artificially synthesize the mitochondrial genome of a mouse "in vitro" in one go (mitochondria are cellular organelles that produce energy and have their own DNA).

The researchers' article was published in the journal Nature Methods (Daniel G Gibson et al., Chemical synthesis of the mouse mitochondrial genome), and the work is briefly described on the Nature News portal (Genome-building from the bottom up).

The researchers learned how to "assemble" a genome about 16.3 thousand nucleotides long from individual single-stranded fragments of 60 "letters", which were also synthesized artificially. DNA exists in the form of a double–stranded helix, and the connection of single-stranded fragments into pairs occurs unambiguously - only segments whose sequences are complementary are connected (they are also said to be combined as a key and lock).

The authors of the technique selected the synthesis conditions in such a way that the effective unification of single-stranded fragments took place in the reaction mixture. The scientists placed the formed double-stranded segments into Escherichia coli Escherichia coli cells, where they were combined into longer fragments. In the system developed by scientists, they could select only those bacterial cells in which the assembly of the final fragments was correct. At the last stage of the process, these fragments were combined to obtain the mouse mitochondrial genome.

So far, the authors have not checked whether the assembled genome "works", however, according to them, the proposed process is much more accurate than assembling from commercially synthesized long fragments (now scientists can order the synthesis of long – up to full-genome sequences from biotech companies).

Recently, a team of scientists led by the same researcher as in this work – Daniel Gibson – obtained a bacterium with a fully synthetic genome. The authors chemically synthesized the genome of the parasitic microorganism Mycoplasma mycoides and inserted it into the cell of a related bacterium Mycoplasma capricolum. The final organism had all the signs of M. mycoides, which confirmed the fact that the artificial genome "took root".

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru12.10.2010