Artificial DNA Presents Real Dangers

Posted by Daniel Sharp May 2, 2012
Biopolitical Times

As concerns grow about dangers posed by the emergent field of synthetic biology, a novel discovery threatens to make this “extreme” form of genetic engineering even more risky.  

Since Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, it’s been a common assumption that DNA and RNA are the only molecules that can store genetic information and pass it on.  That belief, according to a recent article in Science, may no longer hold.

New Discoveries in Synthetic Biology - XNA

The article’s conclusion is summarized by its title, “Synthetic Genetic Polymers Capable of Heredity and Evolution.” "There is nothing Goldilocks about DNA and RNA," noted Phillip Holliger, a co-leader along with Vitor Pinheiro of the research team who authored the paper. "There is no overwhelming functional imperative for genetic systems or biology to be based on these two nucleic acids." DNA, as one article about the new study puts it, no longer has “reason to feel special.”

Holliger and Pinheiro's team of researchers, based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, demonstrated that six alternative nucleic acids are capable of storing and transmitting genetic information. These molecules, collectively dubbed XNAs or Xeno-Nucleic-Acids (“Xeno” is Greek for foreign or alien) carry the same nucleic acid base pairs as do DNA and RNA (the well-known A, C, T, and G), but do so on a sugar backbone different from the deoxyribose of DNA or the ribose of RNA.

The Cambridge team induced one of the XNAs to undergo an evolution-like process, thus demonstrating that “replication, heredity and evolution are possible in these alternative [XNA] backbones.”

Just as significant is the set of techniques developed in conducting the research.  XNAs have been in scientific use for some time, but scientists used to have to make them one at a time, limiting their experimental value. The new research has made that process obsolete. As one researcher put it, “if I give you a few XNAs in the morning, I can come back in the afternoon and you can give me trillions of copies.”

Media Buzz and Scientific Hype

The study has been greeted with a wave of media buzz not seen for synthetic biology since Craig Venter’s team declared they had created the first (so-called) synthetic life form back in 2010. Prominent articles covered it excitedly in the, Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, The Guardian, Scientific American, New Scientist, and BBC News, just to name a few.

The scientific community has also been enthusiastic. One of the study’s authors, molecular biologist John Sutherland, called the discovery a “game changer.” In a commentary in Science titled “Toward an Alternative Biology,” Gerald Joyce, a researcher at the Scripps Research Institute who is unaffiliated with Holliger’s team, proclaimed that:

The work heralds the era of synthetic genetics, with implications for exobiology, biotechnology, and understanding of life itself.

The work done by Holliger and his team is no doubt scientifically significant. However, it is just as significant for the new risks it poses. It is worth summarizing some of the projected applications and risks of this new research.

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