NEWS IN FOCUS
Space Agency (ESA) are looking to fund BI OTEC H NOLOGY
Life’s genetic
private firms to ship scientific instruments
to the lunar surface, in the hope that the
agencies will eventually be among many
customers using the service.
alphabet doubled
NASA, which turned its sights back to the
Moon after a 2017 US presidential direc-
tive, aims to provide a training ground for
Mars missions and to study lunar resources
that could sustain a human presence on the
Moon, for example by mining oxygen and
Synthetic, eight-letter DNA behaves like the real thing.
hydrogen for fuel, as well as purely scientific
studies. B Y M AT T H E W WA R R E N bases, including a pair named S and B, and
To help reach these goals, the agency another called P and Z, all of which are similar
T
l au nche d t he $ 2 . 6 - bi l l i on , 1 0 - ye ar he DNA of life on Earth stores infor- to the natural four (M. M. Georgiadis et al. J.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mation in just four key chemicals Am Chem. Soc. 137, 6947–6955; 2015). In the
programme in 2018. Last November, NASA — guanine, cytosine, adenine and Science paper, the researchers describe how
picked nine consortia that it deems eligible thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A they combine these four synthetic bases with
to fly its payloads to the Moon. Each is led and T, respectively. Now scientists have dou- the natural ones.
by a US firm and includes multiple partners bled the number of life’s building blocks, cre- The team then conducted a series of exper-
to cover launch, lander and operations capa- ating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter iments to show that its synthetic sequences
bilities. Scientists are currently submitting genetic language that seems to store and tran- share properties with natural DNA that are
proposals to NASA for instruments or tech- scribe information just like natural DNA. essential for supporting life. The research-
nologies that could make up the payloads to In a study published on 22 February in ers created hundreds of molecules of the
be shipped commercially. Science, researchers led by Steven Benner, synthetic DNA, and found that the letters
The programme is intended to “jump- who established the Foundation for Applied bound to their partners predictably, which is
start” a private Moon-lander industry, says Molecular Evolution in Alachua, Florida, important for the reliable storage of informa-
Richards, and mirrors NASA’s effort more suggest that an expanded genetic alphabet tion. They then showed that the structure of
than a decade ago to encourage develop- could, in theory, support life (S. Hoshika the double helices remained stable, no matter
ment of commercial space-flight firms such et al. Science 363, 884–887; 2019). “It’s a real what order the synthetic bases were in, which
as SpaceX. The agency is now among many landmark,” says Floyd Romesberg, a chemi- is important for evolution because DNA
clients that use these commercial services to cal biologist at the Scripps Research Institute sequences need to be able to vary without the
send cargo to space. in La Jolla, California. The study implies that structure falling apart. This is a substantial
there is nothing particularly ‘magic’ or special advance, says Philipp Holliger, a synthetic
RAILWAY TO THE MOON about those four chemicals that evolved on biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecu-
Böhme says that NASA is likely to pick dozens Earth, says Romesberg. “That’s a conceptual lar Biology in Cambridge, UK, because other
of payloads as part of the CLPS programme, breakthrough,” he adds. methods of expanding the genetic alphabet
giving several firms a shot at the Moon, prob- Normally, as a pair of DNA strands twist are not as structurally sound.
ably from 2020. “We’re creating the railroad, around each other into a double helix, the Finally, the team showed that the synthetic
a DHL delivery service to the Moon,” says chemicals on each strand pair up: C bonds DNA could be faithfully transcribed into
John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, with G, and A bonds RNA — a key step for translating genetic
based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, another with T. For a long time, “There is information into proteins. “The ability to
firm hoping to land the first commercial scientists have tried to nothing store information is not very interesting for
lunar craft. add new pairs of such particularly evolution,” says Benner. “You have to be able
ESA is planning a single lander mission chemicals, also known ‘magic’ or to transfer that information into a molecule
that would launch in 2025, aimed at dem- as bases, to the genetic special about that does something.” To demonstrate tran-
onstrating the feasibility of harvesting water alphabet. For example, those four scription, Benner’s team created synthetic
or oxygen from soil at the lunar poles. Last Benner first created chemicals DNA that codes for an aptamer, an RNA
month, the agency contracted PTScientists ‘unnatural’ bases in the that evolved sequence that binds and activates specific
(which was created in direct response to the 1980s, and Romesberg’s on Earth.” molecules rather than serving as a protein
XPRIZE), rocket-makers ArianeGroup of laboratory inserted a template. The transcribed RNA was able to
Paris and aerospace firm Space Application pair of unnatural bases into a living cell in bind and activate a fluorescent molecule.
Services of Brussels to explore the viability of 2014. But the latest study is the first to sys- Benner’s team has also developed further
such a mission. Böhme says that the agency tematically demonstrate that the comple- pairs of new bases, opening up the possibility
hopes to secure the roughly €250 million mentary unnatural bases recognize and bind of creating DNA structures with 10 or even
(US$283 million) it would need from mem- to each other, and that the double helix they 12 letters. But the fact that the researchers have
ber states in November. Unlike in the CLPS form holds its structure and information. already expanded the genetic alphabet to eight
programme, for which commercial partners Benner’s team created the synthetic is in itself remarkable, notes Romesberg. “It’s
will cover launch costs, ESA would pay for the letters by tweaking the molecular structure already doubling what nature has.”
mission’s launch and operations, as well as for of the regular bases, which pair up by form- Holliger says that the work is an exciting
room on the lander, says Böhme. ing hydrogen bonds. Each contains hydrogen starting point, but that there is still a substan-
Today, Richards estimates, a mission to the atoms, which are attracted to nitrogen or oxy- tial distance to go before a true eight-letter
Moon’s surface could cost about $50 million, gen atoms in their partner. Benner says that genetic system is reached. One key question,
half of what it cost a decade ago. Economies it’s a bit like Lego bricks that snap together for example, will be whether the synthetic
of scale for subsequent missions could bring when the holes and prongs line up. DNA can be replicated by polymerases, the
the price of individual payloads down to just By adjusting these holes and prongs, the enzymes responsible for synthesizing DNA
hundreds of thousands of dollars, he says. ■ team has come up with several new pairs of inside organisms during cell division. ■
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