In that context, it searches for tell tale signs of life that can be remotely monitored but it has only life on Earth as examples to identify such suitable markers. However, by showing that other nucleic acids can also store information, replicate and evolve, our research may force a rethink as to whether DNA and RNA are the most suitable tell tale signs of life.
Of course, nothing would call the indispensability of DNA- or RNA-based life into question more than the generation of an entirely synthetic, alternative life form, built from the ground up entirely by XNA.
Such an organism would require XNA capable of driving its own replication, without the aid of any biological molecules.
Pinheiro says that's still a ways off. That said, his team's work represents a major step in the right direction. As the molecular machinery designed to manipulate XNAs grows, so, too, will the capacity for synthetic genetic systems to stand and operate on their own.
The researchers' findings are published in today's issue of Science. Your link appears not to be a link, but certainly PNAs peptide nucleic acids - not really nucleic acids, but still Point take, but, well, this is hardly just an issue with nucleic acid-based therapies, is it? And thus, these molecules would need little or no adaptation for therapeutic or diagnostic use. You could select a suitable XNA for its biocompatibility and therapeutic potential, "and an XNA molecule isolated directly in that backbone.
Sorry, I literally don't get this. What does this mean? Are we talking about delivering medicinal compounds attached to XNA polymers, or picking XNA bases for how they bind to particular targets, or what? Each building block contains three parts: a sugar called deoxyribose, a phosphate molecule and a molecule called a base.
The bases are like the letters in the instruction manual. RNA is made of similar repeating units, but it has a different type of sugar, called ribose, in each building block. The cell then reads the RNA to create molecules called proteins, which perform important functions in the body. Instead, they substituted different molecules. DNA, illustrated here, is a pair of long, intertwined chains made of repeating chemical building blocks.
Joyce is a biochemist, someone who studies the chemistry of living things, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
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E-mail the story A new directed evolution technique to unlock the potential of xeno-nucleic acids.
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