Creating Alien Life Forms On Earth: New Nucleic Acid Base Pair Developed By Scientists; Semisynthetic Organisms Created

All existing living forms on Earth are primarily based on four nucleotide bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine and thiamine). They pair in very specific manner and form the DNA, which is the backbone of the very existence of life. Scientists have developed a new nucleotide base pair, which they represent as X-Y.

The X-Y base pair was used for the development of semisynthetic bacterial organisms, which had some additional physiological features. It is highly probable that scientists may soon be able to develop semisynthetic alien life forms.

Professor Floyd Romesberg and his team at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) first published their groundbreaking research finding in 2014. However, the research study published in 2014 showed that the E. coli bacteria in which they integrated the X-Y base pair failed to indefinitely maintain the base pair in their genome. Thus, Prof. Romesberg and his team started working on the development of a semisynthetic bacterial strain whose genome is integrated with X-Y base pair and the base pair stays indefinitely even after cell divisions, and they actually did it, News Medical reported.

The new findings were published on Jan. 23, 2017 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We've made this semisynthetic organism more life-like," Prof. Romesberg said.

"Your genome isn't just stable for a day. Your genome has to be stable for the scale of your lifetime. If the semisynthetic organism is going to really be an organism, it has to be able to stably maintain that information," he explained.

The scientists achieved this by modifying the nucleotide transporter molecules, which are responsible for transporting the synthetic base pair and integrating it into the bacterial genome. They also employed the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool to identify and eliminate those E. coli cells, which failed to integrate the X-Y base pair, ABC News reported.

Prof. Romesberg has made it clear that these semisynthetic organisms have no identified realistic applications till now. However, the recent discovery or in some ways invention of a new method to create alien life forms on Earth stirred a discussion among the peers regarding the possible consequences of such research practices and its impact of the existence of natural life forms.