Move Over DNA – Here Comes XNA!

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    Think
    that DNA is the only molecule that can encode genetic material? Think
    again.

    Philipp Holliger of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and his team
    has created a man-made genetic material called the XNA (as science fiction
    fans worldwide all ponder, what could possibly go wrong?):

    Holliger’s team focused on six XNAs (xeno-nucleic acids). DNA and
    RNA are made of a sugar, a phosphate and a base. The XNAs had different
    sugars, and in some of them the sugars are replaced with completely
    different molecules.

    A key hurdle for the team was to create enzymes that could copy
    a gene from a DNA molecule to an XNA molecule, and other enzymes that
    could copy it back into DNA.

    They started with enzymes that do this in DNA only. Over the years
    the team made incremental tweaks until they produced enzymes that could
    work on XNAs.

    Once they had created these enzymes, they were able to store information
    in each of the XNAs, copy it to DNA, and copy it back into a new XNA.
    In effect, the first XNA passed its information on to the new one –
    albeit in a roundabout way. “The cycle we have is a bit like a
    retrovirus, which cycles between RNA and DNA,” Holliger says.

    This is the first time artificial molecules have been made to pass
    genes on to their descendants. Because the XNAs can do this, they are
    capable of evolution.

    “The immediate question is whether these XNAs can be introduced
    into cells,” says Farren Isaacs of Yale University in New Haven,
    Connecticut. Once the XNAs were installed, they could replicate and
    evolve on their own. “That would be remarkable.”

    Link

    Link:
    Move Over DNA – Here Comes XNA!

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