Total Synthesis of a Functional Designer Eukaryotic Chromosome

TLDR

Synthetic biology seeks to construct designer organisms from scratch, and while rapid DNA synthesis has enabled complete bacterial genomes, the larger, more complex eukaryotic genomes present a significant challenge. The authors designed a synthetic eukaryotic chromosome derived from yeast chromosome III. The resulting chromosome is about 14 % smaller than the wild type, lacks destabilizing tRNA genes and transposons, and remains fully functional with all genes tagged for easy removal. Annaluru et al.

Abstract

Designer Chromosome One of the ultimate aims of synthetic biology is to build designer organisms from the ground up. Rapid advances in DNA synthesis has allowed the assembly of complete bacterial genomes. Eukaryotic organisms, with their generally much larger and more complex genomes, present an additional challenge to synthetic biologists. Annaluru et al. (p. 55 , published online 27 March) designed a synthetic eukaryotic chromosome based on yeast chromosome III. The designer chromosome, shorn of destabilizing transfer RNA genes and transposons, is ∼14% smaller than its wild-type template and is fully functional with every gene tagged for easy removal.