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. 2016 Mar 25;351(6280):aad6253.
doi: 10.1126/science.aad6253.

Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome

Clyde A Hutchison 3rd  1 , Ray-Yuan Chuang  1 , Vladimir N Noskov  1 , Nacyra Assad-Garcia  1 , Thomas J Deerinck  2 , Mark H Ellisman  2 , John Gill  3 , Krishna Kannan  3 , Bogumil J Karas  1 , Li Ma  1 , James F Pelletier  4 , Zhi-Qing Qi  3 , R Alexander Richter  1 , Elizabeth A Strychalski  4 , Lijie Sun  1 , Yo Suzuki  1 , Billyana Tsvetanova  3 , Kim S Wise  1 , Hamilton O Smith  5 , John I Glass  1 , Chuck Merryman  1 , Daniel G Gibson  5 , J Craig Venter  5
Affiliations

Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome

Clyde A Hutchison 3rd et al. Science. .

Erratum in

Abstract

We used whole-genome design and complete chemical synthesis to minimize the 1079-kilobase pair synthetic genome of Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. An initial design, based on collective knowledge of molecular biology combined with limited transposon mutagenesis data, failed to produce a viable cell. Improved transposon mutagenesis methods revealed a class of quasi-essential genes that are needed for robust growth, explaining the failure of our initial design. Three cycles of design, synthesis, and testing, with retention of quasi-essential genes, produced JCVI-syn3.0 (531 kilobase pairs, 473 genes), which has a genome smaller than that of any autonomously replicating cell found in nature. JCVI-syn3.0 retains almost all genes involved in the synthesis and processing of macromolecules. Unexpectedly, it also contains 149 genes with unknown biological functions. JCVI-syn3.0 is a versatile platform for investigating the core functions of life and for exploring whole-genome design.

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Comment in

  • The minimal genome comes of age.
    Vickers CE. Vickers CE. Nat Biotechnol. 2016 Jun 9;34(6):623-4. doi: 10.1038/nbt.3593. Nat Biotechnol. 2016. PMID: 27281422 No abstract available.

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