Posted on Feb 22, 2019
DNA is spelled out with four letters, or bases. On Thursday, a team of scientists reported that they have in effect doubled the genetic alphabet to a system with eight letters that don’t exist in nature which may hold clues to the potential for life elsewhere in the universe.
Natural DNA is spelled out with four different letters — A, C, G and T. Steven A. Benner and colleagues have built DNA with eight bases, reports Science, four natural, and four unnatural. They named their new system Hachimoji DNA (hachi is Japanese for eight, moji for letter).
“We can do everything here that is necessary for life,” said Benner, a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida. The four new bases fit neatly into DNA’s double helix, and enzymes can read them as easily as natural bases, in order to make molecules.
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Hachimoji DNA could have many applications, including a far more durable way to store digital data that could last for centuries, reports Carl Zimmer in today’s New York Times. “This could be huge that way,” said Dr. Nicholas V. Hud, a biochemist at Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved in research.
It also raises a profound question about the nature of life elsewhere in the universe, offering the possibility that the four-base DNA we are familiar with may not be the only chemistry that could support life.
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Beyond its implications for digital storage, Hachimoji DNA also offers some clues about life itself, writes Zimmer.
“Scientists have long wondered if our DNA evolved only four bases because they’re the only ones that can work in genes. Could life have taken a different path?”
The Daily Galaxy via New York Times and Science
Image credit: With thanks to BBC Earth