Scientists led by J. Craig Venter turned one species of bacteria into another by replacing its DNA with a whole new set of genetic instructions.
The research is being viewed as a major step in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, in which scientists custom-build cellular components -- and, it is someday hoped, a whole new organism -- from scratch.
Venter and his team accomplished the switch by adding an antibiotic resistance gene to DNA from Mycoplasma mycoides. Then they removed the
DNA, inserted it into Mycoplasma capricolum, and bathed the cells in the antibiotic. A few days later, the only cells to survive were those containing the implanted antibiotic-resistant mycoides DNA, which instructed their new cellular bodies to produce the same proteins as their old bodies once had.
Researchers at the Venter's Institute are currently trying to design a simple genome that can be added to a bacterial host. They hope that bacteria could someday be programmed to consume carbon dioxide or produce cheap, clean energy.
It's a noble dream, and Venter's team just might have the smarts and ambition to pull it off, but this quote gave me pause: "This is the equivalent of changing a Macintosh computer to a PC by inserting a new piece of software," Venter told the Los Angeles Times.
Turning a Mac into a PC? A stable, safe machine into a buggy, easily hacked security threat? Calls to mind a world of synthetic bacteria that could one day quit gobbling CO2 and start spewing out erectile dysfunction ads. Somebody from Venter's PR team needs to have a talk with the old boy...
Related Wired coverage here.
DNA team transforms one bacterium into another [Los Angeles Times]
