Scientists create artificial DNA molecule
Scientists have successfully created a pair of DNA nucleobases, which, like adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine in natural DNA, can copy themselves nearly as well as the real thing.
A computer illustration of the double-helix structure of DNA. Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., have synthesized discovered two new DNA nucleobases, expanding the potential building blocks of DNA from four to six.
Reuters
The language of life is about to expand its vocabulary. An international team of researchers discovered that the body's copying machine for DNA works in the same way for manmade, artificial building blocks of DNA as it does for the natural kind.
If scientists find artificial DNA building blocks work well and are safe to use, the extra building materials could create DNA that codes for new molecules that the body can't make now. The artificial DNA could also form the basis of a partly synthetic organism.
The DNA code in living things is made of four different molecules, called bases, that are nicknamed A, T, C and G. In a double row of DNA, the bases always link up to each other in a specific way, with A's matching with T's and C's matching with G's. In 2008, a team of researchers created a third, artificial pair of DNA molecules made to match with each other, named NaM and 5SICS. In this new study, some of the same researchers used a technique called X-ray crystallography to take pictures of A, T, C, G, NaM and 5SICS while they were getting copied in a test tube.
DNA is an important bodily process that happens often, so that cells can pass their genetic information on to new cells that are created all the time, such as skin or blood cells that develop to replace old, worn-out cells.
