Scientists Created First Synthetic Cell

[lestatdark]

Scoobes said:

lestatdark said:

SciFiBoy said:
reading about this in the paper this morning on the train, sounds interesting and like it has potential for the future, though from what I understand, this only proves the underlying theory, it doesnt in itself do anything that important just yet, im not a biologist though.

Actually this opens up a whole new field in genetics engineering. Previous to having a whole synthetic cell, the study of different mutation effects and study of genomic libraries, studies had to be done with use of generic bacteria like E.Coli, B.Subtilis, H.Influenza or with the use of genetically modified Yeasts (S.Cervisiae) using phages as vector mediums.

With this new technology, the entire synthetic DNA can be manipulated to provide the same yield of effects. We're talking about a whole chromossome that was man-made. That's literally millions of nucleotides arranged in a fashion that provides functionality for hundreds of genes and that can express the necessary building blocks (amino-acids and glucose-degrading enzymes) for that cell to grow. Now, with the advent of this technology, scientist can express the mutations and the study of different gene combinations on the chromossome itself.

Very true. I hope that in a few years time we'll have synthetic bacterium on the market for recombinant expression of proteins, in particular, expressing mammalian cells that would normally be insoluble in your typical E. coli expression systems, with a greater number of chaperones on the chromosome to improve soluble expression.

The implications on whole-cell bioprocesses and metabolic engineering are astounding.

The problem of expressing mammalian cells is the huge amount of bp's that each mammalian gene require. Probably it won't be sufficient to have synthetic bacterium to express them in recombinant fashion. 

Probably, when the techonology gets more advanced, and we can synthetically manufacture eukaryotic DNA and express it, then that techonology will be viable. Yeasts or Algae are probably the most likely source, and quite frankly, the next step in this field.

But yeah, the whole implications on this discovery are simply staggering. It's probably the major breakthrough since the definition of modern day genomics in the 60's.