Synthetic Cell Dies Without Mysterious Genes

After creating the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell, biotech researcher and entrepreneur J. Craig Venter and colleagues have figured out that their created cell can live a full and reproductive life with only 473 of its genes. However, the most interesting aspect for the researchers is that about one-third of these genes relate to unknown but critical biological functions.

"If we take out any of those genes, the cell dies," Venter told DNews. "We expected some of those because we see them in every life form, but I expected 5 to 10 percent at most. The fact that we don't know this much biology is very humbling."

Using its first synthesized cell as a model, scientists at the La Jolla, California-based J. Craig Venter Institute started with a set of genes they thought would be necessary for life. The model cell, known as JCVI-syn1.0 has 901 genes and is nearly identical to the naturally-occurring Mycoplasma mycoides. Then they started evaluating genes one at a time, so each could be classified as essential or non-essential.

"Those (genomes) are not small because they are primitive. They are small because they evolved from a cell that has a few thousand genes. They've lost genes they don't need in a mammalian host, which provides a very rich, uniform, constant environment. They've already evolved a long way toward a minimal genome. We're just helping them along to get rid of genes they don't need in the laboratory," said biochemist and microbiologist Clyde Hutchison, lead author of the study.

For more information, read the article on Discovery News.