Genetic Engineering: Eliminating the Stop Codon
September 13, 2011 | Terry Sharrer
Harvard’s George Church, Farren Isaacs, and colleagues have used a technique called “multiplex automated genome engineering” to alter all 314 stop codons in the E. coli genome, in effect deactivating them by changing the TAG sequence to TAA. They claim: “In contrast to in vitro genome synthesis and transplantation methods that introduce discrete and abrupt changes in a single genome, our genome engineering technologies treat the chromosome as an editable and evolvable template and generate targeted and combinatorial modifications across many genomes in vivo.” MORE