Craig Venter and Clyde Hutchison and guided by their scientific team designed and synthesized a bacterial genome minimum necessary to sustain life . It consists of only 473 genes. Thus achieved the goal planned in 1995.
In 2010, the team published a groundbreaking study, during which created the first replicating synthetic bacterial cell. In this way it proved that genomes can be designed on a computer, to create in the laboratory and enter the cell, thereby completely replicating cell controlled by a synthetic genome. The next step, just ended, it was necessary to create cells with a minimal set of genes.
The researchers used in their study of the bacterium Mycoplasma . Is a bacterium having the smallest genome among all known autonomously replicating cells. After the synthesized genome Mycoplasma mycoides , researchers, based on the available literature, designed a hypothetical minimal genome for eight different segments of DNA. Each of these fragments can independently tested to see whether it includes only the necessary genes. Scientists have also tried to identify the genes that are necessary for development, but not necessary for survival.
After many years of research we obtained the final version of the genome marked JCVI-syn3.0. It consists of 473 genes. Such a genome is smaller than any other known to us from nature. It lacks all of the genes that modify DNA and restriction enzymes, it does not have a majority of the genes encoding the lipoproteins. Interestingly, scientists still do not know exactly what are the functions of up to 31% of the genes in the JCVI-syn3.0.
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