tRNA neoChromosome paper published
Our collaborative project, led by Patrick Cai, to design, construct and test a synthetic neo Chromosome - a chromosome that is new to nature - has been published. The tRNA neochromosome is used to house and organise all 275 nuclear tRNA genes from the yeast and will eventually be added to the fully synthetic yeast where the tRNA genes have been removed from the other synthesised chromosomes. It forms part of a wider project (Sc2.0) that has now successfully synthesised all 16 native chromosomes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, common baker’s yeast, and aims to combine them to form a fully synthetic cell.
It was a major challenge to design a neochromosome that could both express hundreds of tRNA genes and be faithfully replicated in cells. We’re delighted to have contributed to the design and to have demonstrated stable DNA replication for the tRNA neochromosome. – Conrad Nieduszynski
The paper is published today in Cell:
