Acceleration of genomics

A candidate for replacement of E. coli has been proposed

Polit.<url> based on the materials of Science: Cientists want to replace lab workhorse E. coli with the world's fastest-growing bacterium

Harvard University geneticist George Church and his colleagues published a paper in the bioRxiv preprint collection (Lee et al., V ibrio natriegens, a new genomic powerhouse), where they propose to replace the bacterium Escherichia coli, which is now very often used in laboratory research and biotechnological processes. The authors believe that Vibrio natriegens will better cope with this role, since it holds the record for the growth rate among bacteria.

E. coli was discovered 131 years ago, and since then it has been used in many scientific studies in microbiology, analysis of gene functions and other fields. Scientists use four strains of this bacterium, which are easy to cultivate in the laboratory and which have already lost the ability to infect the human intestine. E. coli multiplies quite quickly, doubling its number in ideal conditions in 20 minutes. Genetically modified E. coli bacteria are used for the industrial synthesis of a variety of proteins, including an analog of human insulin.

George Church and his co-authors believe that such a widespread use of E. coli is primarily due to the fact that this bacterium is most well studied. Church's colleague Henry Lee says that modern genomics research takes a very long time if it is carried out on E. coli, so it must be replaced with a bacterium that multiplies faster. Vibrio natriegens is suitable for this, doubling its number not in 20 minutes, but in just 10. This bacterium is related to Vibrio cholerae, but there is no evidence that it can infect humans. To encourage the adoption and use of V. natriegens by other laboratories, Henry Lee and his team sequenced the complete genome of this bacterium, and also developed a version of the CRISPR genome editing system that works with it.

The world of microbiologists took this news with keen interest. Harris Wang from Columbia University is preparing that much will depend on how stable the genome of the bacterium will remain for many generations, as well as how easily DNA will be extracted from it. Nevertheless, Harris Wang and many other researchers agreed that the candidacy of Vibrio natriegens may be successful.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  20.06.2016