Intellectual Property & Your Health Series - Synthetic genomes

Shidonna Raven
Apr 28
2 min read

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

Before you go to the Doctor!

Advances in synthetic biology

Synthetic genomes

In January 2008, JCVI scientists Daniel G. Gibson and Hamilton O. Smith successfully assembled a modified version of the genome of the bacterium M. genitalium from scratch. This was markedly different from the one-by-one gene modifications of recombinant DNA research, since numerous genes were linked together to create a new genome. The synthetic genome was only slightly different from the natural one; the slight differences kept the genome from becoming pathogenic (disease-causing) and also allowed it to be identified as artificial. The scientists dubbed this new version M. genitalium JCVI-1.0. Having 582,970 base pairs, it was 10 times longer than any previously assembled genome. M. genitalium JCVI-1.0 was created from 101 custom-made, overlapping “cassettes,” each of which was 5,000–7,000 nucleotides long. M. genitalium was chosen for the experiment because it is the simplest naturally occurring bacterium that can be grown in vitro (under laboratory conditions); its genome is made up of only 482 genes (plus 43 RNA-coding genes).

In May 2010, JCVI researchers announced that they had created a 1.08-million-base-pair synthetic genome and inserted it into the cytoplasm of a bacterium, making the first functioning life-form with a synthetic genome. The synthetic cell was named M. mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. Its genome was almost identical to the naturally occurring genome of M. mycoides, except that it had certain genetic “watermarks” to indicate its synthetic composition.