{"title":"New Synthetic Cell Challenges One-Gene, One-Trait Hypothesis","authors":"Marcia Stone","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.293.1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"“Life is much more like a symphony orchestra than a piccolo player,” J. Craig Venter says about his institute's new synthetic bacterium. It carries a mere 473 genes, a smaller genome than any autonomously replicating cell ever found in nature. That Venter and his collaborators synthesized a new bacterium and brought it to life in a bacterial corpse is not the biggest part of this story. Perhaps more importantly, their synthetic mini microbe, designated JCVI-syn3.0, contains many quasi-essential genes—genes not absolutely necessary for viability but critical for robust growth. This is not the one-gene, one-trait phenomenon that cell reductionists were wishing for, he asserts. Details appeared 25 March 2016 in Science (doi:10.1126/science.aad6253).","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/MICROBE.11.293.1","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.293.1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
“Life is much more like a symphony orchestra than a piccolo player,” J. Craig Venter says about his institute's new synthetic bacterium. It carries a mere 473 genes, a smaller genome than any autonomously replicating cell ever found in nature. That Venter and his collaborators synthesized a new bacterium and brought it to life in a bacterial corpse is not the biggest part of this story. Perhaps more importantly, their synthetic mini microbe, designated JCVI-syn3.0, contains many quasi-essential genes—genes not absolutely necessary for viability but critical for robust growth. This is not the one-gene, one-trait phenomenon that cell reductionists were wishing for, he asserts. Details appeared 25 March 2016 in Science (doi:10.1126/science.aad6253).