SHANGHAI, Aug. 2 -- Brewer's yeast, one-third of whose genome is said to share ancestry with humans, has 16 chromosomes. However, Chinese scientists have managed to fit nearly all its genetic material into just one chromosome while not affecting the majority of its functions, according to a paper released Thursday on the website of the journal Nature.
Qin Zhongjun, a molecular biologist at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences of the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team used CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing to create a single-chromosome yeast strain, the paper said.
Yeast is a type of eukaryote, which also includes humans, plants, and animals. Humans have 46 chromosomes, whereas male jack jumper ants have just one. It seems that the number of chromosomes of a eukaryote has no correlation with the amount of genetic information they possess, the paper said.
"Our research shows that all the genetic information can be concentrated in just one chromosome," Qin said.
In the past, researchers had fused two yeast chromosomes together, but no one had ever performed the type of extreme genetic surgery that Qin and his colleagues set out to do several years ago.
Using the CRISPR-Cas9, Qin's team removed the DNA at the telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that protect them from degrading. They also snipped out the centromeres, sequences in the middle that are important to DNA replication, the paper said.
【国内英语资讯:China Focus: Chinese scientists perform genetic surgery to create first single-chromosome ye】相关文章:
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