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Significance of genome synthesis
P.A. WAHID
Every organism has a genetic program which determines its biological functioning. The elucidation of the structure of DNA in 1953 and the information encoded by its base sequence for protein synthesis led the scientists to believe that the structure of DNA constitutes the genetic information.
Accordingly, DNA segments came to be known as “gene” and the entire collection of genes encoded by a particular organism as “genome” (genetic program) — the blueprint of life. This implies that it is the genome that is responsible for life and that life originated from non-life.
Miraculous accident
It is hypothesised that millions of years ago, certain chemicals (e.g. RNA, DNA, etc.) formed and assembled themselves in a miraculous accident producing life. So far this assumption has not been tested. This assumption can be verified by synthesising a genome and observing whether the genome comes to life or not.
The lack of this information has put biologists in a quandary. Biologists are unable to define what “life” is; geneticists are unable to define what the “gene” is; and evolutionists are unable to define what “species” is! The production of “life” from non-life in the laboratory will explain all these. This is the domain of synthetic biology.
At present we have the knowledge and technology required to produce any gene in the laboratory. Molecular biologists have been synthesising genes, but now a research group at the J. Craig Venter Institute, U.S., has artificially produced the complete genome of an organism. The organism is Mycoplasma genitalium, a parasitic bacterium with the smallest genome for any free-living cell.
The group constructed synthetically the genome of the organism and named it Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. It contained all genes of the organism except the gene MG408, which was disrupted to block pathogenicity (Science February 29, 2008, Vol. 319).
Unwelcome finding
This is a landmark achievement in biology for two reasons: one is that scientists have been able to synthesise the genome (genetic program) of a living organism. Secondly, it proved that a genome cannot come to life. It is this unwelcome finding that is more important than the former. Both science and the popular media have been conspicuously silent about this fact.
The failure of the synthetic genome to spring to life questions the very basis of theories of origin of life, molecular genetics and the theory of evolution. It should be noted that the researchers were primarily aiming at synthesising an organism in the laboratory and not merely producing a DNA molecule. They chose the genome of an organism to represent a natural genetic program and hoped that the synthesised genome will become the living organism to which it corresponds.
The failure of the genome to come to life justifies Wilhelm Johannsen who, while proposing the gene concept in 1909, cautioned against conceptualising the gene as physical entity. The absence of “life” in the synthesised genome proves that the genetic program is not carried in material form.
Already molecular genetics has been showing signs of inconsistency in several ways — the regulatory role played by the so-called junk DNA, epigenetic phenomenon, to name but a few.
Will the new finding that synthetic genome will not spring to life be a death-knell to molecular genetics, theories of origin of life and evolutionary biology? Time will tell.
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