Stunning Synthesis of Self-Sustaining Synthetic Cell!

This recent breakthrough sounds like something straight out of a science fiction film!

Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, the first fully synthetic, self-sustaining bacteria

Along with a team of researchers, famous American scientist J. Craig Venter has defied the laws of biology by creating a fully synthetic, self-sustaining bacterial cell, formally known as Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0.

J. Craig Venter, American Scientist, known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome.

Development of this new species was completed in 2010. Researchers utilized yeast cells, because of their incredible ability to assemble DNA sequenes. Thanks to that helpful quality, the yeast cells were able to synthesize the 1,078 DNA gene cassettes that were generated using genomic software to create the genetic code for the new bacteria. Once the yeast cells had assembled the bacterial genome, the DNA was then isolated from the yeast cell, and transplanted into recipient cells.

Diagram depicting yeast cell synthesizing DNA

Now that the research team had the basic genome of their aspiring bacteria, they now needed to crack the mystery of how to turn it into a fully functioning bacterial cell. They needed to insert it into a similarly operating cell, without that cell fighting back and destroying the carefully constructed DNA. The team new that recipient cells needed to be utilized in this process, as they willingly accept foreign DNA without breaking it down in a defensive manner. Through trial and error, they finally settled on a bacterial recipient cell to use in the genomic transplant; known as Mycoplasma capricolum, which are pathogens that prey primarily on goats, as well as sheep and cows.

Goat.

Once the synthetic DNA was taken up by the M. capricolum recipient cell, it started "adopt[ing] the physical characteristics of its chromosomal donor", coding for all of the necessary proteins for the cell's survival and reproductive success. They found that by replacing the genome of the bacterium with a resembling chromosome of a different species "[they] had, in essence, changed one species of bacteria into another." This proved their method to be effective in the evolution of the artificially generated genome.

Although this project was somewhat costly (*cough cough* roughly $40 million), ultimately, it means unlimited advancements of fully artificial life forms in the forseeable future.