Gene synthesis allows biologists to source genes from farther away in the tree of life

Gene synthesis enables the creation and modification of genetic sequences at an unprecedented pace, offering enormous potential for new biological functionality but also increasing the need for biosurveillance.

In the paper, Aditya M. Kunjapur, Philipp Pfingstag, and Neil C. Thompson introduce a bioinformatics technique for determining whether a gene is natural or synthetic based solely on nucleotide sequence. This technique, grounded in codon theory and machine learning, can correctly classify genes with 97.7% accuracy on a novel data set. Then they classify approximately 19,000 unique genes from the Addgene non-profit plasmid repository to investigate whether natural and synthetic genes have differential use in heterogeneous expression.

Phylogenetic analysis of the distance between source and expression organisms reveals that researchers are using synthesis to source genes from more genetically distant organisms, particularly for longer genes. They provide empirical evidence that gene synthesis is leading biologists to sample more broadly across the diversity of life and provide a foundational tool for the biosurveillance community.

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