Are there any artificial bacteria?
Indeed! In 2010, the genetic material of a bacterium was recreated with the help of a computer and inserted into the empty cell of another bacterium. The empty cell thus took on the identity of the bacterium on whose model the genetic material was artificially modelled.
More precisely, the genetic material of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides was synthetically reconstructed and introduced into a single cell of a close relative, Mycoplasma capricolum. Prior to this, its own genetic material was removed, leaving the cell as an "empty shell". The introduced, foreign genetic material ensured that the actual Mycoplasma capricolum cells were transformed into Mycoplasma mycoides cells - the "empty shell" was thus reprogrammed into a different organism by the foreign, artificially produced genetic material. The world première of this artificially produced bacterium "Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0" was achieved by the US J. Craig Venter Institute.
However, in this case the genetic material of the bacterium was replicated almost 1:1 and not "recreated", so it did not contain any artificial combinations of genetic information that did not exist in this form. In addition, the empty bacterial cell already provided a certain set of proteins, fats and sugars. For this reason, many scientists doubted that Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 was an "artificial life form".
The aim of further research is to program an artificial bacterium from scratch in order to use it in the near future for simple and optimised applications (e.g. water treatment or the production of certain valuable substances, see illustration). The genetic material of such a "minimal organism" consists only of a set of genes that are absolutely necessary for survival. In 2016, Craig Venter's research group artificially produced a minimal genome and inserted it into an empty bacterial envelope. The result was the first synthetic, viable organism, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn3.0. It has only 473 genes that it needs for vital processes such as growth, metabolism and reproduction - but that is far more genes than previously expected. The exact function of a third of these genes is unknown. This shows that even unicellular organisms such as bacteria are very complex and are still far from being fully understood.
It will be a long time before a bacterium with a range of desired properties can be designed from scratch on a computer. The (further) development of synthetic organisms must be subject to proper risk research and serious control, as planned applications will affect the entire planet and many generations.
Read more:
https://www.biospektrum.de/blatt/d_bs_pdf&_id=1044409
© Text and figure Carolin Köster / VAAM, carolin.koester[at]ufz.de, Use according to CC 4.0
