New Letters Added To the Genetic Alphabet

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Quanta Magazine: [A]fter decades of work, [organic chemist Steven] Benner's 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 DNA's 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. In fact, the article continues, these new nucleotides can actually outperform their natural counterparts: "When challenged to evolve a segment that selectively binds to cancer cells, DNA sequences using P and Z did better than those without."

Comments

Re:P-Z viruses as a tool?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's far, far away at this point. In cells, DNA is first "transcribed" to an RNA copy of the same information, then "translated" by building a protein based on that information. Neither of those steps will work correctly here. Transcription enzymes won't handle the new DNA letters, and there's no defined meaning for them in the standard translation code: at best they'll be misinterpreted as a different letter, and it's more likely that translation will simply fail. And unless you can make at least a handful of proteins, you can't make a virus.