Transcript Living System???

Creating living systems
• It is easy to ask questions in biology
• It is difficult to answer
• And we try to use words like
Conformation
Flexibility
Evolution
complexity
Living System???
More of a paradox!!!!
Chemical composition of cell
(Can we design a Cell?)
Paradoxes in Living System
Assumptions!!!
• Can I create a Cell
• Reductionist approach
(Break a cell and see)
Chemical composition of a Cell
Give me my Cell Back!!!!
However Craig Venter was able to think
out of the box
1995
Can a complete genetic system be
reproduced by chemical synthesis starting
with only the digitized DNA sequence
contained in a computer?
Build a cell which contains only essential
genes
Mycoplasma genitalium, a bacterium with
the smallest complement of genes of any
known organism capable of independent
growth in the laboratory
Mycoplasma laboratorium or Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0
Craig Venter and Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith
partially synthetic species of bacterium derived from the genome of Mycoplasma
genitalium called Mycoplasma laboratorium.
(smallest known free-living bacterium, and the second-smallest bacterium and
also considered to be the organism with the smallest genome (482 genes and
582,970 base pair genome ) till 2002
There is speculation that this line of research could lead to producing bacteria that have
been engineered to perform specific reactions, e.g. produce biofuels, make medicines,
combat global warming, etc
SYNTHETIC BACTERIA
MYCOPLASMA MYCOIDES
MYCOPLASMA CAPRIOLUM
PUT IT HERE
SYNTHESIZED
DNA IN A TEST
TUBE
Mycoplasma mycoides JCVIsyn1.0 - the world's first synthetic
organism
First truly synthetic organism created using four bottles of chemicals and a computer
Creating a synthetic cell
Applications
• You can make cells with some genes for
living and the other genes for
• Biofuel
• Biopesticide
• Drugs
Advantages
We can make cells with few genes required
for survival and few for making
Biofuels
Drugs
Biopesticides
bioplastic
Major risks
• Bioterrorism
The synthetic cell theory again supports the fact
that life did not originate in earth but life appeared
from somewhere.
The other theory:
Life originated in earth
RNA was the first genetic material
(RNA world)
MILLER
UREY
EXPT
SPONTANEOUSLY
RNA
PROTEINS
Flow of Genetic Information
Reverse
Transcription
RNA
DNA
RNA
DNA
RNA
RNA
PROTEIN
RNA
PROTEIN
PROTEIN
RNA can act as genetic material
• HIV
RNA acts as Enzymes
“RIBOZYMES”
Life originated in water
P
O
1'CHO
H
H
H
5'
2'
CH2
OH
3'
Base
O
OH
H
4'
4'
H
1'
OH
H
5'
H2COH
H
3'
2'
O
..
OH
:B
D-Ribose
(open Chain Str.)
P
-D-Ribofuranose residue in polynucleotide Chain
Explaining the Universe Without a Clue
Jack W. Szostak
Stepping back conceptually from our parochial waterdominated viewpoint, we can immediately see that water
is really a noxious, toxic, corrosive and generally lethal
environment for life. In fact given the well known
properties of water one might almost be tempted to say
that it’s a miracle that life ever began in such a solvent!
Life originated in ammonia