Even thought I decided not to pursue it beyond the first level biology courses, I have a pretty strong interest in genetics. The entire topic is just curiously fascinating. I just read about some research that includes a new artificial base pair being replicated:
DNA…is a double helix formed of the base pairs of adenine and thymine (referred to as A and T for short), and of cytosine and guanine (C and G). But now, for the first time since life began, a third, artificial base pair is being replicated. The unnatural molecule is 3-fluorobenzene (3FB for short), which forms a pair with itself.
That’s pretty hardcore if you ask me. The research should help answer the question of why, in every organism, there are only two base pairs. The 3FB base pair is not yet perfect though, “A mistake typically occurs once in every 1,000 base pairs that are copied, compared with around one in 10m bases of natural DNA.”
If they can improve the copy quality, some really interesting things could be on hand:
That might help evolutionary biologists answer the question of why, for billions of years, and in every form of life on earth, only two base pairs are used. It might be that the two base-pair system is the best. Or it might be a simple accident which occurred when life began. In any case, expanding the genetic code of simple organisms could lead to radical new applications for medicine and biotechnology, and to useful information storage and retrieval systems based on DNA.
Read: Economist.com
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