Scientists at a research institute in Cambridge have achieved a breakthrough in the re-engineering of the genetic code of microbes.
Scientists are able to create new synthetic cells that have capabilities not normally found in nature.
Cambridge's Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology said the breakthrough is expected to open up the possibility of manufacturing new materials that can be used for everything from plastics to medications. Researchers have managed to alter the microbes' codes to instruct them to build unique chains of amino acids.
"This is potentially a revolution in biology. These bacteria may be turned into renewable and programmable factories that produce a wide range of new molecules with novel properties, which could have benefits for biotechnology and medicine, including making new drugs such as antibiotics," the project leader at the research institute, Jason Chin, said.
The landmark research, which was published in the Journal Science Friday, built on the work done by previous scientists involving the manipulation and editing of DNA sequences. It also builds on the team's 2019 breakthrough, which led to them creating a new version of the common E. coli gut microbe using nothing but lab chemicals.
In their latest work, the researchers were able to rewrite the genetic code of a Syn61 bacterium. This allowed them to modify the microbe's cellular machinery, giving it additional properties. The Cambridge scientist exploited the redundancies naturally occurring in the genetic code to repurpose some codons to produce different building blocks.
Through their experiments, the scientists were able to engineer bacteria capable of stringing together exotic monomers - or molecular building blocks - that turned into novel proteins and polymers.
"We would like to use these bacteria to discover and build long synthetic polymers that fold up into structures and may form new classes of materials," China said.
The applications for the newly developed technologies are limitless, researchers said. One of the applications they are exploring is the development of novel polymers such as biodegradable plastics and new classes of biomaterials with innovative properties.
Chin said there is a lot of "commercial potential" for microbial engineering and they are already working to protect the intellectual property rights of the new technology.
