

A semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet - rav-rdz
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13314.html

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rav-rdz
Basically, _natural DNA_ (can't believe I get to say that) comprises the
nucleobases A/C/G/T (adenine/cytosine/guanine/thymine) which pair up A-T and
C-G (via hydrogen interactions) and, along with some other junk (a sugar and
phosphate group) make up nucleotides, which in turn are the monomers that DNA
is composed of.

This team managed to a. insert wholly synthetic bases that b. bonded with each
other (so the DNA now has A/C/G/T/x/y) and c. weren't easily susceptible to
repair via normal mechanisms, thus the modifications "stick."

This opens up a lot of possibilities since it removes the artificial four
"letter" constraint, theoretically allowing researchers to create DNA that
could in turn manufacture previously impracticable and/or synthetic proteins.
These would obviously have tremendous value in bioscience at least, and maybe
in other fields e.g. materials science.

Incredibly exciting work, though at the moment it seems that the specimens
must be artificially supplied with building blocks for the novel bases.

