Total Synthesis of a Functional Designer Eukaryotic Chromosome

A breakthrough in the total synthesis of a functional 272,871–base pair designer eukaryotic chromosome (SynIII) has been reported by an international consortium of scientists. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/e...

Based on the 316,617 - base pair native Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome III
SynIII remains functional in the yeast. The many changes made to SynIII do not appear to significantly decrease the fitness or alter the transcriptome or the replication timing of the synIII strain, supporting the very pliable nature of the yeast genome and potentially allowing for much more aggressively redesigned future genome versions.
The complete design and synthesis of SynIII establishes S. cerevisiae as the basis for designer eukaryotic genome biology opening the route to understanding evoutionary and mechanistic questions about genome structure and function, as well as engineering new eukaryotic genomes.

Student participation kicked off what has become an international effort, called Sc2.0, Several academic researchers have partnered to reconstruct the entire yeast genome,
1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University ( JHU) School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
2. High Throughput Biology Center, JHU School of Medicine,
Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
3. Group Spatial Regulation of Genomes, Department of Genomes Genetics, Institut Pasteur, F-75015 Paris, France.
4. CNRS, UMR 3525, F-75015 Paris, France.
5. New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA.
6. Department of Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Genetic Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering, JHU, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
7. Biological Sciences, Research and Exploratory Development Department, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.
8. Department of Biology, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore,MD 21210, USA.
9. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
10. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
11. Department of Biology, JHU, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
12. Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, JHU, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
13. Whiting School of Engineering, JHU, Baltimore, MD 21218,
USA.
14. Pondicherry Biotech Private Limited, Pillaichavady, Puducherry 605014, India.
15. Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre etMarie Curie, Univ Paris 06, UMR 7238, Génomique desMicroorganismes, F-75005 Paris, France.
16. CNRS, UMR7238, Génomique des Microorganismes, F-75005 Paris, France.