ARTIFICIAL life pioneer Craig Venter and his team have smuggled an alien genome into unwitting bacterial cells. This takes them closer to creating microorganisms with synthetic genomes that are purpose built to carry out specific roles, such as making biofuels or hydrogen.
Venter鈥檚 team, based at the in Rockville, Maryland, took the genome of one bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides, copied it and transferred it to yeast for easier modification, and then implanted it into another bacterial species, Mycoplasma capricolum. However, the recipient cell recognised the modified genome as alien and destroyed it.
The team tried two approaches to overcome this problem. First they sought out and deactivated the enzyme in M. capricolum responsible for recognising and damaging foreign DNA. Then they attempted to disguise the donor DNA in order to trick the recipient species into believing the genome had always belonged in the cell. The first method proved to be most reliable ().
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The next step will be to use this method to insert a lab-built genome into a bacterial cell, creating a brand-new organism.