A new study from Princeton has revealed how a synthetic protein revives E. coli cells that lack a life-sustaining gene, offering insight into how life can adapt to survive and potentially be reinvented.
Researchers in the Hecht lab discovered the unexpected way in which a synthetic protein called SynSerB promotes the growth of cells that lack the natural SerB gene, which encodes an enzyme responsible for the last step in the production of the essential amino acid serine. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
