Manmade DNA

The world's first synthetic cell; Scientists 've produced a living cell powered by manmade DNA. A re-creation of existing life — changing one simple type of bacterium into another — than a built-from-scratch kind.

This is transforming life totally from one+ species into another by changing the software

The researchers picked two species of Mycoplasma, simple germs that contain a single chromosome and lack the cell walls that form barriers in other bacteria. First, they chemically synthesized the genome of M. mycoides, that goat germ, twice as large as the germ genome they'd previously built.

Then they transplanted it into a living cell from a different Mycoplasma species, albeit a fairly close cousin.

At first, nothing happened. The team scrambled to find out why, creating a genetic version of a computer proofreading program to spell-check the DNA fragments they'd pieced together. The result: They found that a typo in the genetic code, in one of the synthetic genome's million chemical base pairs, was rendering the manmade DNA inactive, delaying the project three months to find and restore that bit. The recipient cell started out with synthetic DNA and its original cytoplasm, but the new genome "booted up" that cell to start producing only proteins that normally would be found in the copied goat germ. It reproduced into a small colony of germs in a lab dish. The researchers had tagged the synthetic DNA to be able to tell it apart, and confirmed that those new ones really looked and behaved like M. mycoides, not the recipient cell.

Source & Thanks to: Harvard Medical School