The instructions encoded into DNA are thought to follow a universal set of rules across all domains of life. But researchers report in Science that organisms routinely break these rules.
The finding has implications for the design of synthetic life: by designing organisms that break the rules, researchers may be able to make novel life forms resistant to viral infection. Making these organisms also been proposed as a way to stop synthetic life forms from infecting unintended hosts. Widespread exceptions to these rules, however, could make it difficult to engineer organisms that will not pass on their DNA to those in the wild.
The team looked specifically for events in which stop codons — genetic sequences that normally tell an organism to finish making a protein — instead send a ‘go’ signal, telling the organism to add another amino acid to the growing protein.
Share this article
Read the full, original story: Microbes defy rules of DNA code
