Scientists synthesize large mirror image polymerase

Scientists synthesize large mirror image polymerase

Realize mirrored DNA information storage

Large mirror scientists synthesized polymerase scientists synthesized polymerase large mirrorMirror image information storing DNA Mirror image information storing DNA Mirror image information storing DNA

The massive amount of information generated by the rapid development of human society has greatly challenged the information storage capabilities of traditional magnetic and optical media
.

DNA is expected to become a new generation of information storage media due to its advantages of high information storage density and long storage time

Through nearly 5 years of research and exploration, the team ofProfessor Zhu Ting from the School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University has completely chemically synthesized a large mirror protein with a molecular weight of 90 kDa: Pfu DNA polymerase, and used this high-fidelity mirror polymerase to assemble a long chain of kilobase length.
Mirror DNA, and developed information storage technology based on mirror DNA
.

Relevant research results were published in the journal "Nature-Biotechnology" on July 29

Through nearly 5 years of research and exploration, the team chemically synthesized a large mirror protein with a molecular weight of 90 kDa: Pfu DNA polymerase.

Just as the human left hand and right hand are in a mirror symmetry relationship with each other and cannot be completely overlapped, some molecules in nature also have features that cannot overlap with their mirror image counterparts.
This feature is called "chirality", and this type of molecule is called "Chiral Molecules"
.

Ribose and amino acids are both chiral molecules, so the biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins are chiral, and the chirality of nucleic acids and proteins that constitute living organisms is uniform, that is, natural nucleic acids are composed of D-type (right-handed) ) Consists of ribose.

Similar to the natural DNA information storage technology, the mirrored DNA information storage technology mainly includes two processes of "writing" and "reading" of information, and requires high-fidelity mirrored DNA polymerase to help it
.

However, limited by the existing protein and nucleic acid chemical synthesis technology, the effective synthesis of large mirror image proteins with a molecular weight of more than 50 kDa and long-chain mirror DNA with a length of more than 150 bp has not been achieved, which has long restricted the field of mirror biology.

The researchers proposed a strategy of using segmented protein design to assist synthesis, breaking through the limitation of total chemical synthesis on protein size, and obtaining the largest fully chemically synthesized protein that has been reported so far.
The researchers also used the high-fidelity mirror image polymerase to assemble up to 1.
5 The kb mirror image 16S ribosomal RNA gene is the longest mirror image DNA that has been reported so far
.

The full chemical synthesis strategy of large-scale mirror image proteins and the assembly technology of kilobase-length mirror-image genes used by researchers for the first time solve the problem of preparing large-scale mirror image biomolecules that have long restricted the development of the field of mirror biology.

Researchers have developed a mirrored DNA synthesis and sequencing technology based on mirrored phosphorothioate DNA.
The new technology has obvious advantages in sequencing read length, accuracy, and operability
.

The researchers converted the text that Pasteur first proposed the concept of "mirror biological world" in 1860 into base sequences and wrote them into the mirrored DNA library, and accurately read the text information from the mirrored DNA, thus realizing Mirror DNA information storage

According to Zhu Ting, the team is committed to building a "mirror biological system" that is opposite to the chirality of natural biomolecules based on the principles of the genetic information center and using multidisciplinary methods such as chemistry and biology
.

So far, the research group has preliminarily realized the mirror image nucleic acid replication, transcription, reverse transcription and other processes in the mirror image center law.

Related paper information: https://doi.

https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41587-021-00969-6