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Engineered yeast breaks new record: a genome with over 50% synthetic DNA

Highly edited strain survives and replicates despite containing 7.5 artificial chromosomes.
  1. Katherine Bourzac
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Biologists have produced a strain of yeast whose genome is more than 50% synthetic DNA. Standard brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) stores its genetic blueprint across 16 chromosomes. In the new strain, 6.5 of those chromosomes were edited and synthesized in the laboratory — and an extra one was stitched together from edited bits of the yeast’s genetic code.

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Nature 623, 469 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03495-4

References

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