Scientists created first living Organism that transmits added Letters in DNA

Scientists have engineered a bacterium whose genetic material includes an added pair of DNA letters or bases that is not found in the nature. Cells of this unique bacterium can replicate the unnatural DNA bases more or less normally for as long as the molecular building blocks are supplied to it.

This bacterium has been engineered by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI).

Generally two pairs of DNA bases namely A-T and C-G encodes the life on Earth in all its diversity, while the newly engineered bacterium is an organism that stably contains these two bases along with the third, unnatural pair of bases.

Conclusion of Scientists with this newly created DNA letters
As per the scientists this solution shows, that other solution for storage of information is possible and it also took them closer to expanded-DNA biology. This expansion will lead them to many applications from new medicines to new kinds of nanotechnology.

• Research team was led by TSRI Associate Professor, Floyd E. Romesberg
• Lead author of the new report - Denis A Malyshev, he is a member of the Romesberg laboratory

The team led by Romesberg has been working since 1990 to find the pairs of molecules that could serve a new fundtional DNA bases - and, in principle, could code for proteins and organisms that have never existed before.
 
This report was published on 7 May 2014 in an advance online publication of the journal Nature.