The structural diversity of artificial genetic polymers.
The structural diversity of artificial genetic polymers.
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DOI：
10.1093/nar/gkv1472
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发表时间：
2016-02-18
影响因子：
14.9
通讯作者：
Egli M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Anosova I;Kowal EA;Dunn MR;Chaput JC;Van Horn WD;Egli M
合成遗传学是合成生物学的一个分支学科，旨在开发人工遗传聚合物（也称为异种核酸或XNAs），这些聚合物可以在体外并最终在模型细胞生物中复制。这一科学领域将有机化学与聚合酶工程相结合，创造出可以储存遗传信息并在外界刺激下进化的替代形式的DNA。合成遗传学的实践者假设XNA可以通过在正交染色体中存储遗传信息来保护合成生物学生物体。XNA聚合物作为抗核酸酶亲和试剂（适体）和催化剂（异种酶）的来源也在积极研究中，并在疾病诊断和治疗中有实际应用。在这篇综述中，我们提供了一个已知的反平行双工结构的结构视角，其中至少有一条沃森-克里克双工链完全由XNA组成。目前，只有少数XNA结构被存档在蛋白质数据库中，而现在有超过10万个结构可用。鉴于对异种生物学项目日益增长的兴趣，我们选择比较XNA聚合物的结构特征，并讨论它们进入核酸折叠空间新区域的潜力。
Synthetic genetics is a subdiscipline of synthetic biology that aims to develop artificial genetic polymers (also referred to as xeno-nucleic acids or XNAs) that can replicate in vitro and eventually in model cellular organisms. This field of science combines organic chemistry with polymerase engineering to create alternative forms of DNA that can store genetic information and evolve in response to external stimuli. Practitioners of synthetic genetics postulate that XNA could be used to safeguard synthetic biology organisms by storing genetic information in orthogonal chromosomes. XNA polymers are also under active investigation as a source of nuclease resistant affinity reagents (aptamers) and catalysts (xenozymes) with practical applications in disease diagnosis and treatment. In this review, we provide a structural perspective on known antiparallel duplex structures in which at least one strand of the Watson–Crick duplex is composed entirely of XNA. Currently, only a handful of XNA structures have been archived in the Protein Data Bank as compared to the more than 100 000 structures that are now available. Given the growing interest in xenobiology projects, we chose to compare the structural features of XNA polymers and discuss their potential to access new regions of nucleic acid fold space.