[ad_1]
Scientists have succeeded in obtaining a single-celled synthetic organism that divides and multiplies in the same way as single-celled biological organisms, a success that could lead to the construction of nanocomputers and new ways to synthesize and administer drugs.
“There are many ways that the biology of this century can change our lives for the better,” said research team coordinator Elizabeth Strychalski, director of the Cell Engineering Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). For example, Strychalski and his colleagues want to build living sensors that can perform measurements of the environment, monitoring acidity, temperature and oxygen levels, writes Agerpres.ro.
Also read: Caught without a protective mask, Vlad Voiculescu is angry with protesters shouting at doctors! ‘I am shocked and angry’
These sensory cells can be programmed to produce certain substances, especially drugs, and they can be placed in the human body and will synthesize and release the pharmaceutical product exactly when the patient needs it.
“One of the perspectives is that when the cell senses a disease state, then it can synthesize the necessary drug, and when the disease state disappears, the synthesis of the drug stops,” Strychalski said. Other cells can be grown in the laboratory and used to produce food and energy efficiently, while others can be used to perform computational functions on a molecular scale, he added.
Also read: Doctor Valeriu Gheorghiță: ‘As of April 13 we will open 144 new vaccination offices for the administration of the vaccine from the Pfizer company’
But these are perspectives. To get there, researchers must unravel the mysteries of the cell at a fundamental level, before attempting to manipulate them into synthetically derived organisms.
In the new study, Strychalski and his colleagues took an important step toward that goal, publishing their findings in the March 29 issue of the journal Cell. They started with a synthetic cell called JCVI-syn3.0, which was created in 2016 and contains only 473 genes; by comparison, Escherichia coli bacteria have about 4,000 genes.
Also read: Dan Barna: ‘This coalition will go through Romania in crisis, regardless of these hooligan demonstrations that will be sanctioned’
These extremely simple synthetic cells were created from the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, a sexually transmitted microbe from which the researchers extracted natural DNA. In creating the JCVI-syn3.0 cell line, the researchers wanted to discover which genes are absolutely essential for the survival and minimal normal functioning of a single-celled organism, and which of the genes are superfluous.
However, if JCVI-syn3.0 cells can synthesize their necessary proteins and replicate their DNA without problems, they cannot divide into uniform spheres. Instead, they divided randomly, producing offspring cells of multiple shapes and sizes. Strychalski and his team tried to solve this problem by adding some of the genes initially excluded from the cells, to identify the minimum number of genes necessary for the cell to reproduce and form another uniform spherical cell.
Also read: President Klaus Iohannis: ‘Violence, instigation to disobey the law, behaviors that endanger the lives of Romanians, are toxic and harmful’
After years of work, the researchers obtained the JCVI-syn3A cell line, which consists of cells that contain a total of 492 genes. Seven of these genes are critically important to a normal cell division process.
“Several genes in the minimal cell had no known function,” said James Pelletier, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a co-author of the study. Similarly, “we also found that some of the genes that the cell needed to divide had no previously known functions,” he added. The reintroduction of these genes into the minimal cell allowed them to divide into perfectly uniform spherical cells.
Also read: PSD reflects Klaus Iohannis: in 2018 it condemned the Gendarmerie, today it condemns political parties, although the protests were not organized by political parties!
Some of these important genes likely interact with the cell membrane, based on their genetic sequences, Pelletier explains. This may mean that they alter the physical properties of the membrane, making it malleable enough to divide properly, or that they generate forces within the membrane that stimulate cell division. However, researchers do not yet know the specific mechanism these genes use to achieve cell division.
“Our study was not designed to discover the intracellular mechanisms associated with each of these genes with unknown functions. This will be the goal of further study,” Strychalski added.
Also read: Caught without a protective mask, Vlad Voiculescu is angry with protesters shouting at doctors! “I am shocked and angry.”
[ad_2]
