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Chemists Invent New Letters for Nature’s Genetic Alphabet
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/chemists-invent-new-letters-natures-genetic-alphabet/...Nearly 30 years ago, Benner sketched out better versions of both DNA and its chemical cousin RNA, adding new letters and other additions that would expand their repertoire of chemical feats. He wondered why these improvements havent occurred in living creatures. Nature has written the entire language of life using just four chemical letters: G, C, A and T. Did our genetic code settle on these four nucleotides for a reason? Or was this system one of many possibilities, selected by simple chance? Perhaps expanding the code could make it better.
Benners early attempts at synthesizing new chemical letters failed. But with each false start, his team learned more about what makes a good nucleotide and gained a better understanding of the precise molecular details that make DNA and RNA work. The researchers efforts progressed slowly, as they had to design new tools to manipulate the extended alphabet they were building. We have had to re-create, for our artificially designed DNA, all of the molecular biology that evolution took 4 billion years to create for natural DNA, Benner said.
Now, after decades of work, Benners team has synthesized artificially enhanced DNA that functions much like ordinary DNA, if not better. In two papers published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society last month, the researchers have shown that two synthetic nucleotides called P and Z fit seamlessly into DNAs helical structure, maintaining the natural shape of DNA. Moreover, DNA sequences incorporating these letters can evolve just like traditional DNA, a first for an expanded genetic alphabet...
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Chemists Invent New Letters for Nature’s Genetic Alphabet (Original Post)
Demeter
Jul 2015
OP
Interesting. What are the names of these two bases or are they just called P and Z
still_one
Jul 2015
#1
still_one
(92,482 posts)1. Interesting. What are the names of these two bases or are they just called P and Z
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)2. A 6-base DNA could store much more information than a 4-base DNA:
The amount of storable information would increase by a factor of log(6)/log(4)=1.29
bemildred
(90,061 posts)3. Interesting.
One wonders how many new ones could be added before they start to gum each other up?
Are there an infinite number of nucleotides that work interchangeably with DNA?
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)4. Retread article, with some of the same sources. Still interesting.
Wired, from over a year ago.
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/synthetic-dna-cells/
DavidDvorkin
(19,500 posts)5. Damn. I just finally managed to memorize G, C, A, and ... the other one.