Found a way to produce almost any chemicals in bacteria

The site Harvard появилась note breakthrough team of geneticists, which under the leadership of George Church's of Института Applied Genetics. Wyss learned genetically programmed bacteria to produce a given chemical. It is hoped that in the near future will be replaced by chemical factories colonies of genetically modified bacteria. Scientists have thus change the genes of unicellular to those given chemical compound produced as part of their metabolism.

One of the leading scientists project, Jameson Rodgers, said: "We sit down on the bacteria is a chemical compound that we need to produce. Then we treat with antibiotics colony, after which survive only the most high-performance cells, which are involved in creating the next generation of bacteria. " Church adds: "The cells are best at managing production, are selected automatically by evolutionary processes. The person no longer needs to scrupulously follow the selection, are engaged in the bacteria themselves. Up to this point in the synthetic biology production of such organisms was only a one-time ».

The study demonstrated the method by which you can make almost any bacteria produce almost any chemical (in the experiment, the bacteria E. coli). Technology allows the bacteria that 1,000 times the performance of all that could be obtained earlier. The method modifies the DNA of microorganisms in such a way that the genes responsible for antibiotic resistance are included only in the presence of the desired chemical. The same chemical becomes necessary for the survival of bacteria. At the same time, producing bacteria insufficient chemical become extremely sensitive to the antibiotic. As a result, with each generation of bacteria increases productivity.

Director of the Institute, Donald Ingber, said: "This breakthrough will affect the pharmaceutical, bio-fuel industry and the production of renewable chemicals. Such a considerable increase efficiency, we not only improve the current production, but also give a chance to create a cost-effective production of many new connections. "

Source: geektimes.ru/post/243981/