Venter team creates synthetic "minimal cell" genome

In a paper published Thursday in Science, researchers including J. Craig Venter said they synthesized JCVI-syn3.0, a bacterial genome for an "approximately minimal cell" with the smallest known gene set required for viability.

Building on earlier work in which an overlapping group of scientists created JCVI-syn1.0, a synthetic Mycoplasma mycoides genome, the researchers used mutagenesis to determine which genes are essential for cell viability. After they removed 428 genes, the resulting 531-kilobase genome contained 473 genes, compared to the 525 genes in the smallest known mycoplasma genome. The authors said 149 of the essential genes are of unknown function. ...