PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Princeton scientists construct synthetic proteins that sustain life

2011-01-07
(Press-News.org) In a groundbreaking achievement that could help scientists "build" new biological systems, Princeton University scientists have constructed for the first time artificial proteins that enable the growth of living cells.

The team of researchers created genetic sequences never before seen in nature, and the scientists showed that they can produce substances that sustain life in cells almost as readily as proteins produced by nature's own toolkit.

"What we have here are molecular machines that function quite well within a living organism even though they were designed from scratch and expressed from artificial genes," said Michael Hecht, a professor of chemistry at Princeton, who led the research. "This tells us that the molecular parts kit for life need not be limited to parts -- genes and proteins -- that already exist in nature."

The work, Hecht said, represents a significant advance in synthetic biology, an emerging area of research in which scientists work to design and fabricate biological components and systems that do not already exist in the natural world. One of the field's goals is to develop an entirely artificial genome composed of unique patterns of chemicals.

"Our work suggests," Hecht said, "that the construction of artificial genomes capable of sustaining cell life may be within reach."

Nearly all previous work in synthetic biology has focused on reorganizing parts drawn from natural organisms. In contrast, Hecht said, the results described by the team show that biological functions can be provided by macromolecules that were not borrowed from nature, but designed in the laboratory.

Although scientists have shown previously that proteins can be designed to fold and, in some cases, catalyze reactions, the Princeton team's work represents a new frontier in creating these synthetic proteins.

The research, which Hecht conducted with three former Princeton students and a former postdoctoral fellow, is described in a report published online Jan. 4 in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.

Hecht and the students in his lab study the relationship between biological processes on the molecular scale and processes at work on a larger magnitude. For example, he is studying how the errant folding of proteins in the brain can lead to Alzheimer's disease, and is involved in a search for compounds to thwart that process. In work that relates to the new paper, Hecht and his students also are interested in learning what processes drive the routine folding of proteins on a basic level -- as proteins need to fold in order to function -- and why certain key sequences have evolved to be central to existence. Proteins are the workhorses of organisms, produced from instructions encoded into cellular DNA. The identity of any given protein is dictated by a unique sequence of 20 chemicals known as amino acids. If the different amino acids can be viewed as letters of an alphabet, each protein sequence constitutes its own unique "sentence."

And, if a protein is 100 amino acids long (most proteins are even longer), there are an astronomically large number of possibilities of different protein sequences, Hecht said. At the heart of his team's research was to question how there are only about 100,000 different proteins produced in the human body, when there is a potential for so many more. They wondered, are these particular proteins somehow special? Or might others work equally well, even though evolution has not yet had a chance to sample them?

Hecht and his research group set about to create artificial proteins encoded by genetic sequences not seen in nature. They produced about 1 million amino acid sequences that were designed to fold into stable three-dimensional structures.

"What I believe is most intriguing about our work is that the information encoded in these artificial genes is completely novel -- it does not come from, nor is it significantly related to, information encoded by natural genes, and yet the end result is a living, functional microbe," said Michael Fisher, a co-author of the paper who earned his Ph.D. at Princeton in 2010 and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California-Berkeley. "It is perhaps analogous to taking a sentence, coming up with brand new words, testing if any of our new words can take the place of any of the original words in the sentence, and finding that in some cases, the sentence retains virtually the same meaning while incorporating brand new words."

Once the team had created this new library of artificial proteins, they inserted those proteins into various mutant strains of bacteria in which certain natural genes previously had been deleted. The deleted natural genes are required for survival under a given set of conditions, including a limited food supply. Under these harsh conditions, the mutant strains of bacteria died -- unless they acquired a life-sustaining novel protein from Hecht's collection. This was significant because formation of a bacterial colony under these selective conditions could occur only if a protein in the collection had the capacity to sustain the growth of living cells.

In a series of experiments exploring the role of differing proteins, the scientists showed that several different strains of bacteria that should have died were rescued by novel proteins designed in the laboratory. "These artificial proteins bear no relation to any known biological sequences, yet they sustained life," Hecht said.

Added Kara McKinley, also a co-author and a 2010 Princeton graduate who is now a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "This is an exciting result, because it shows that unnatural proteins can sustain a natural system, and that such proteins can be found at relatively high frequency in a library designed only for structure."

###

In addition to Hecht, Fisher and McKinley, other authors on the paper include Luke Bradley, a former postdoctoral fellow in Hecht's lab who is now an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, and Sara Viola, a 2008 Princeton graduate who is now a medical student at Columbia University.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Title: "De Novo Designed Proteins from a Library of Artificial Sequences Function in Escherichia Coli and Enable Cell Growth"
Journal: Public Library of Science ONE
Link to paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015364

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

High dietary fat, cholesterol linked to increased risk of breast cancer

2011-01-07
(PHILADELPHIA) Elevated fat and cholesterol levels found in a typical American-style diet play an important role in the growth and spread of breast cancer, say researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson. The study, published in the January issue of The American Journal of Pathology, examines the role of fat and cholesterol in breast cancer development using a mouse model. The results show that mice fed a Western diet and predisposed to develop mammary tumors, can develop larger tumors that are faster growing and metastasize more easily, compared to animals eating ...

Drinking recycled water?

2011-01-07
Madison, WI December 28, 2010 – The Australian Government National Water Commission funded a study to establish an approach to assess the quality of water treated using managed aquifer recharge. Researchers at Australia's CSIRO Land and Water set out to determine if the en product would meet standard drinking water guidelines. At the Parafield Aquifer Storage, Transfer and Recovery research project in South Australia, the team of scientists harvested storm water from an urban environment, treated it in a constructed wetland, stored it in an aquifer, and then recovered ...

Fermi's Large Area Telescope sees surprising flares in Crab Nebula

Fermis Large Area Telescope sees surprising flares in Crab Nebula
2011-01-07
Menlo Park, Calif. — The Crab Nebula, one of our best-known and most stable neighbors in the winter sky, is shocking scientists with a propensity for fireworks—gamma-ray flares set off by the most energetic particles ever traced to a specific astronomical object. The discovery, reported today by scientists working with two orbiting telescopes, is leading researchers to rethink their ideas of how cosmic particles are accelerated. "We were dumbfounded," said Roger Blandford, who directs the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, jointly located at ...

NOAA-led team measures atmosphere's self-cleaning capacity

2011-01-07
An international, NOAA-led research team took a significant step forward in understanding the atmosphere's ability to cleanse itself of air pollutants and some other gases, except carbon dioxide. The issue has been controversial for many years, with some studies suggesting the self-cleaning power of the atmosphere is fragile and sensitive to environmental changes, while others suggest greater stability. And what researchers are finding is that the atmosphere's self-cleaning capacity is rather stable. New analysis published online today in the journal Science shows that ...

UCSB, Texas A&M scientists find methane gas concentrations have returned to near-normal levels

UCSB, Texas A&M scientists find methane gas concentrations have returned to near-normal levels
2011-01-07
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Calling the results "extremely surprising," researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Texas A&M University report that methane gas concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico have returned to near normal levels only months after a massive release occurred following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Findings from the research study, led by oceanographers John Kessler of Texas A&M and David Valentine of UCSB, were published today in Science Xpress, in advance of their publication in the journal Science. The findings show ...

Freshwater methane release changes greenhouse gas equation

2011-01-07
AMES, Iowa – An international team of scientists has released data indicating that greenhouse gas uptake by continents is less than previously thought because of methane emissions from freshwater areas. John Downing, an Iowa State University professor in the ecology, evolution and organismal biology department, is part of an international team that concluded that methane release from inland waters is higher than previous estimates. The study, published in the journal Science, indicates that methane gas release from freshwater areas changes the net absorption of greenhouse ...

Web-based curriculum improves surgical residents' knowledge of health care business

2011-01-07
CHICAGO (January 6, 2011) – According to a report published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, surgery residents improved their knowledge of health care business concepts and principles with the use of a Web-based curriculum. The expectation is for residents to "demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care." However, consensus from residents is that they lack instruction and ...

Professor discovers hidden literary references in the Mona Lisa

2011-01-07
Queen's University Classics professor emeritus Ross Kilpatrick believes the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, incorporates images inspired by the Roman poet Horace and Florentine poet Petrarch. The technique of taking a passage from literature and incorporating it into a work of art is known as 'invention' and was used by many Renaissance artists. "The composition of the Mona Lisa is striking. Why does Leonardo have an attractive woman sitting on a balcony, while in the background there is an entirely different world that is vast and barren?" says Dr. Kilpatrick. ...

UF study of lice DNA shows humans first wore clothes 170,000 years ago

2011-01-07
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study following the evolution of lice shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, a technology which enabled them to successfully migrate out of Africa. Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and migration patterns. His latest five-year study used DNA sequencing to calculate when clothing lice first began to diverge genetically from human head lice. ...

How do data exclusivity periods affect pharmaceutical innovation?

2011-01-07
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — January 6, 2011 — Pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers have long been at odds over regulations about "data exclusivity," the period of time before generic manufacturers can make use of valuable clinical trial data. A new study in the January 2011 issue of Health Affairs is the first to calculate the financial and social costs of limiting access to trial data — and finds that extending the term of exclusive access will lead to higher drug costs in the short term but also to more than 200 extra drug approvals and to greater life ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

UK study shows there is less stigma against LGBTQ people than you might think, but people with mental health problems continue to experience higher levels of stigma

Bringing lost proteins back home

Better than blood tests? Nanoparticle potential found for assessing kidneys

Texas A&M and partner USAging awarded 2024 Immunization Neighborhood Champion Award

UTEP establishes collaboration with DoD, NSA to help enhance U.S. semiconductor workforce

Study finds family members are most common perpetrators of infant and child homicides in the U.S.

Researchers secure funds to create a digital mental health tool for Spanish-speaking Latino families

UAB startup Endomimetics receives $2.8 million Small Business Innovation Research grant

Scientists turn to human skeletons to explore origins of horseback riding

UCF receives prestigious Keck Foundation Award to advance spintronics technology

Cleveland Clinic study shows bariatric surgery outperforms GLP-1 diabetes drugs for kidney protection

Study reveals large ocean heat storage efficiency during the last deglaciation

Fever drives enhanced activity, mitochondrial damage in immune cells

A two-dose schedule could make HIV vaccines more effective

Wastewater monitoring can detect foodborne illness, researchers find

Kowalski, Salonvaara receive ASHRAE Distinguished Service Awards

SkAI launched to further explore universe

SLU researchers identify sex-based differences in immune responses against tumors

Evolved in the lab, found in nature: uncovering hidden pH sensing abilities

Unlocking the potential of patient-derived organoids for personalized sarcoma treatment

New drug molecule could lead to new treatments for Parkinson’s disease in younger patients

Deforestation in the Amazon is driven more by domestic demand than by the export market

Demand-side actions could help construction sector deliver on net-zero targets

Research team discovers molecular mechanism for a bacterial infection

What role does a tailwind play in cycling’s ‘Everesting’?

Projections of extreme temperature–related deaths in the US

Wearable device–based intervention for promoting patient physical activity after lung cancer surgery

Self-compassion is related to better mental health among Syrian refugees

Microplastics found in coral skeletons

Stroke rates increasing in individuals living with SCD despite treatment guidelines

[Press-News.org] Princeton scientists construct synthetic proteins that sustain life