Is there a "gene transfer" in the history of human life? What is the level of synthetic life technology?

Can humans "synthesize life"?
Is there a "gene transfer" in the history of human life?
What is the level of synthetic life technology?
Held in shenzhen on the 19th international conference on botany, plant molecular biologists Ralph bork Germany, national gene bank (shenzhen), the executive director of xu), jian-kang zhu, director of the Shanghai plant stress biology research center, Chinese academy of sciences has made answer to these questions.

Is there a "gene transfer" in the history of life?

Biology transmits genetic material to other organisms instead of offspring, known as gene transfer.
Some studies suggest that a large number of genes have been transferred between organisms between two and one billion years ago.

A: did "gene level transfer" happen?

Ralph bock: I think it's possible that something happened in the early stages of evolution.
First, the vast majority of living organisms were composed of single cells, which are more involved in gene transfer than multicellular organisms.
Second, the cells had a more primitive structure, and the surrounding membranes and cell walls were probably less hard and thus more permeable.
This means that DNA from the environment and other organisms can be easily absorbed.

Xu xun: with the extensive application of sequencing technology and the accumulation of genomic data, there is a large number of homologous genes in the genomes of different species and even distant creatures.

A: what will happen to our understanding of evolution if "gene level transfer" exists?

Ralph bock: this suggests that a shift in gene level and a shift in genomic level greatly contribute to the evolution of early life on earth and the evolution of more complex forms of life.
The evolution of organisms could be greatly accelerated.

Xu xun: new genes, the origin of species evolution and adaptability to the environment play an important role, and the genetic level transfer as an important way of species to introduce new genes, broke the boundary of genetic relationship, the gene flow become more complex, this is also one of the important mechanisms of biological evolution.

Zhu jankang: if this transfer exists, it can be explained that organisms can evolve slowly through mutations in the natural world, and in evolutionary time they can fly.

A: can genetic horizontal transfer occur between higher animals?

Ralph bock: genetic transfer between higher animals is extremely rare.
The reason is that the higher animals have the germ cells, the so-called germ lines, which are well protected in the body, so it's very difficult for them to meet them.

What is the level of synthetic life technology?

A:What are the key technologies for synthesizing life?

Ralph bock: there are two key requirements for synthetic life: one is to have a better understanding of the minimum genes and proteins needed to sustain life;
The second is the technique of synthesizing large fragments of DNA and assembling them into the genome.
That's all we need to synthesize life in bacteria.

Xu xun: American science research, the research team used a computer program design and write the genetic information, and then by means of chemical synthesis synthesize these genetic information, then replace the original DNA in the cell, and ensure that it can continue to keep active.
If the study is reliable, the synthetic life still need to be based on the blueprint, is also our understanding of the existing forms of life, to the understanding of the genome, need sequencing technology, and the data analysis tool as a support.
The yeast chromosome we currently synthesize is less than 50 percent of the smallest chromosome, so how to build superdna and efficiently import receptor cells is another key technology.

A: how much of a transformation can humans do now?

Ralph bock: we can use genes and genomic horizontal transfer as tools to promote new applications of plant biotechnology and synthetic biology.
Not only can we move genes sideways, we can combine genes and genomes to create new plant species.
For example, the genomes of two living species are merged into a new species.
We hope to apply these technologies to crops in this way to produce a new generation of crops in the foreseeable future.

Zhu jankang: level of gene transfer can be as a general purpose tool, it is just a guess, but some things have become important tools, such as plant tumor formation in agrobacterium infect plants, people developed a genetically modified (gm) plants, through the study on its technology.

Can humans synthesize life on a large scale?

Although synthetic life is only in its infancy, social opinion has begun to pay attention to it.
Because it is a double-edged sword, it can both benefit mankind and open Pandora's box.

A: can humans synthesize life on a large scale?

Ralph blog: the next few years, I think there is a lot of the manufacture of synthetic bacterial genome, in the cells and their functional tests, related technology will soon become the norm in many laboratories, but because of the complexity of the genes and gene expression, fully synthetic plants or animals will be very difficult.

Zhu jankang: in the strict sense, the so-called life synthesis has not really synthesized a cell.
Humans don't have enough understanding of life, and can now only synthesize the simplest bacterial genome, even part of the fungus.
For industrial bacteria, yeasts, such as strains of antibiotic production, there is a potential for a large amount of synthesis.
To synthesize a higher organism, I don't think it's going to happen in 100 years.

Xu xun: for the whole academia, design synthetic genome research will upset the life science research pattern, and improving human's understanding of life processes, to deepen the understanding human nature of life, especially through the synthetic genome research that tests our current understanding of genome of all, and will further strengthen our adjustment and the control ability of life processes.

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