First Bacterial Genome Transplantation: Conversion of one species to another
In an article entitled, "Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome" published in the 29th Feb edition of Science (vol. 319:1215-1220), the Craig Venter Group of 17 scientists report of bacterial genome transplantation changing one species to another. The group created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of M. genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work with Dan Gibson as the lead author in the weekly Science magazine is the second of three key steps toward the team’s goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. It must be mentioned here that the transplanted genome uses the built-in functional cell machinery of the host cell vital to DNA replication. The mol wt. of the synthetic M. genitalium is 360,110 kilodaltons (kDa). The base pairs of the synthetic genome, if printed in 10 point font, will span 147 pages. The research to create the synthetic M. genitalium JCVI-1.0 was funded by Synthetic Genomics, Inc. Pl read the companion article by clicking here to have a better understanding of this monumental achievement.
