Selasa, 01 Mei 2012

Jurassic Park in a petri dish: Scientists insert ancient DNA gene into modern bacteria to see if evolution will play out the same way twice

Jurassic Park in a petri dish: Scientists insert ancient DNA gene into modern bacteria to see if evolution will play out the same way twice

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 03:33 EST, 1 May 2012 | UPDATED: 06:23 EST, 1 May 2012

Millions of years ago, a bacterial gene began evolving, and evolving, and evolving...

That bacteria turned out to be E. Coli, and now it lives in the intestines of warm-blooded creatures like us, generally harmless except when it gives us a bout of food poisoning.

Now scientists at Georgia Tech University have re-wound the clock, synthesising one of the genes called EF-Tu as it was 500million years ago, and inserting the ancient gene into E. Coli in place of the modern sequence.

The researchers - making reference to hit 1993 film Jurassic Park - say they are curious to see if 'life finds a way'.

Jurassic Park in a petri dish: The Georgia Tech researchers are splicing old gene sequences with modern bacteria, the real-life equivalent of Spielberg's 1993 monster hit

Jurassic Park in a petri dish: The Georgia Tech researchers are splicing old gene sequences with modern bacteria, the real-life equivalent of Spielberg's 1993 monster hit

Their experiment aimed to watch evolution in action - seeing if the gene follows the same evolutionary path as the modern bacteria, or if it takes a different route altogether.

Now, researchers Eric Gaucher and Betül Arslan have have let eight strands of the virus grow for 1,000 generations, and have already witnessed 'evolution in action'.

Gaucher worked out what the gene sequence of EF-Tu, which plays a role in protein synthesis, would have been like 500 millions years ago, and Arslan synthesised the gene and placed it in E. coli.

Researcher Betül Arslan quotes a line on his website from the Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park, which plays on the same concept of splicing old genes into modern material to recreate past.

He writes: 'Just like a bacterial Jurassic Park would be, I put ancient and modern bacterial genes together, and then observe the molecular changes they encounter in order to adapt survive.

'Observing the real-time evolution of ancient genes as they adapt to the conditions of modern bacteria allows us to analyse evolution in action.'

Bacteria in action: This micrograph shows rod-shaped E.coli bacteria in a human blood culture (the larger blue-pink cells)

Bacteria in action: This micrograph shows rod-shaped E.coli bacteria in a human blood culture (the larger blue-pink cells)

The researchers at Georgia Tech acknowledge their work plays out a bit like Jurassic Park - only with less dinosaurs

The researchers at Georgia Tech acknowledge their work plays out a bit like Jurassic Park - only with less dinosaurs

According to New Scientist, the ancient gene grew less than half as fast as usual, but then - as the eight bacterias evolved independently - their rate of growth grew faster over time - a sign that evolution had occurred.

The research team observed that EF-Tu - their ancient gene - was unchanged after a thousand generations - but the genes that interacted with EF-Tu had changed.

According to New Scientist, with thousands of interacting genes being used in protein synthesis, it was not a surprise that the mutations occurred in one of EF-Tu's partners than to EF-Tu itself.

But, as the experiment continues, the pair will be watching to see what changes occur in the gene, and whether it will follow the same evolutionary path of its ancient brothers and sisters - or branch out into something new altogether.

Here's what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

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"What gives us the right to play around with DNA? If that specific strand of DNA died out millions of years ago, it was for a perfectly good reason- perhaps God intended it to be that way. - Alexander Lionheart, Milton Keynes, 01/5/2012 11:03"

The same right that scientists have to play around with DNA in an effort to fix 'gods' imperfections like cancer, Down's syndrome, Muscular dystrophy and a whole bunch of other unintelligent design errors.

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it's only a matter of time until we have humans with insect legs - Alexander Lionheart, Milton Keynes ........................ Humans with flea legs could do away with the need for airplanes.

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Can we grow a Primeminister that has a pair, better still a whole cabinet that has the interests of British citizens on it's agenda.

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Hoping Alexander Lionheart is just being humorous. Otherwise someone should confiscate his movie collection Bible, and replace it with science books.

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What gives us the right to play around with DNA? If that specific strand of DNA died out millions of years ago, it was for a perfectly good reason- perhaps God intended it to be that way. It's not our place to go around deciding which DNA should be where. If we keep going this way, it's only a matter of time until we have humans with insect legs being ruled over by gigantic shark-wasps. - Alexander Lionheart, Milton Keynes, 01/5/2012 11:03 I have to say I don't agree with you on the most part - I find this research exciting. Shark-wasps however, would be awesome.

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What could possibly go wrong. Why would you try to bring back a DNA strand that you have no idea what it could do. It isn't around anymore for a reason.

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It might follow the same evolutionary path is given IDENTICAL conditions but definitly not otherwise.

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"What gives us the right to play around with DNA?" Alexander Lionheart, Milton Keynes - The fact that we have the knowledge and ability to do so?

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We can us humans leave things a lone? its like opening pandora's box.

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What gives us the right to play around with DNA? If that specific strand of DNA died out millions of years ago, it was for a perfectly good reason- perhaps God intended it to be that way. It's not our place to go around deciding which DNA should be where. If we keep going this way, it's only a matter of time until we have humans with insect legs being ruled over by gigantic shark-wasps.

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