CRISPR gene editing has just pulled off one of its most impressive feats yet . A squad of scientists from China has managed to create a Modern metal money : a bread maker ’s yeast with just one mega - chromosome . Meanwhile , a group of American investigator has done the same thing using two chromosomes instead of one .
Why is this so cool ? Well , this beer - making microorganism normally has 16 chromosome . All of this hereditary entropy is now slop into a single chromosome . The pioneering inquiry could avail explicate why we , and other organisms , split our DNA across many dissimilar chromosome . As this freak barm show , it does n’t actually appear to make much deviation if the DNA is in one chromosome or 16 chromosome .
“ That was the biggest shocker – that you may just get off with this and barm seem to shrug its shoulders , ” Jef Boeke , a geneticist at New York University who worked on the US project , toldNature newsworthiness .
The scientist ' enquiry , along withan accompanying essay , was published in the journal Natureon August 1 . The US study can be readhere , and the Chinese study can be viewedhere . The investigator used CRISPR - Cas9 , a kind of “ curve - and - spread ” gene - editing tool , to snip the chromosomes ’ centromeres and telomeres , which hold each stringy chromosome together . They then stitch them back together in a single Ernst Boris Chain .
Yeast is a type of eukaryote , a group that also include humans , plants , and animals . Weirdly , the number of chromosomes a eukaryote has does n’t seem to be associated with the amount of transmitted info it hold or how “ complex ” the creature is . A cultivated carrot has 18 chromosomes , a kangaroo has 16 , a carp has 100 , a swell livid shark has 82 , and an atlas blue butterfly has 450 .
The fact that changing the number of chromosomes around does n’t appear to change the action of the genes in them suggests that the identification number of chromosomes is but a random accident of development .
" We discover that yeast can stick out drastic change in chromosome telephone number without disrupting the action mechanism of the genes in them , more grounds of their robustness as an engineering weapons platform , " Boeke excuse in astatement .
The new yeast did hightail it into some fuss when it came to intimate procreation . Nevertheless , technically verbalise , the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 could be a totally new human - made coinage as it ca n’t reproduce with the un - neutered yeast at all .
“ Beyond applications , this work pour forth light on the risky flight of accidental chromosome duplicate and fusions across evolution that has leave one ant species with a single pair of chromosomes , human race with 23 pairs , and one metal money of butterfly with 220 , " state Boeke .
" We are con how one metal money becomes two . "
