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| Louis Hom |
 Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 8:40 pm |
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In article <bl9f8l01afm@enews4.newsguy.com>,
Bob <bbruner@uclink4.berkeley.edu> wrote:
Quote:
To make a mirror cell requires making a cell, and making all the
special mirror components that are needed -- which must be a few
hundred proteins plus ???
Google: "smallest genome" turns up Mycoplasma genitalium (on the
order of 470 genes) as the smallest genome (580 kb) of an "independent"
organism (mycoplasma are usually thought of as parasites, but not
cellular parasites like viruses).
As far as addressing the need for a mirror cell, the concept of
spiegelmers may be useful [NB: I was reminded that "spiegel" is German
for "mirror".] The idea is that you have a ligand you'd like to bind, and
you generate oligonucleotide aptamers against the wronghanded version.
You then synthesize wronghanded aptamers that bind the correct enantiomer
in order to generate molecular recognition agents that aren't susceptible
to the existing nucleases. You can imagine it might be nice to have,
e.g., antibodies or other binders/catalysts that resist degradation in
biomedical applications, to generate high affinity (mature) Abs that would
be impossible to elicit in a mouse due to self-recognition. So you could
perhaps elicit antibodies against the wrong enantiomer, sequence the
mature MAb genes, then synthesize the wronghanded DNA sequence for
recombinant expression in your mirror cell. It's a foot in the door, at
least.
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Lou Hom >K'93
lhom@ocf.berkeley.edu
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/ |
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| Bob |
| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 10:53 pm |
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On 30 Sep 2003 16:41:26 GMT, "Oliver 'Ojo' Bedford"
<acp29@campfire.rrz.Uni-Koeln.DE> wrote:
Quote:
Bob <xyzbbruner@uclink4.berkeley.edu> writes:
Someone else, in this thread I think, suggested that viruses are
inherently bad or harmful. No, not at all. But there is an
observational bias. Because viruses are so small, we tend to observe
them only when they do something, and often that is something bad.
What I did suggest was that viruses are inherently dangerous.
Their therapeutical use is associated with a risk. The main
problem here is the time-scale, long-term effects need also a long
time to be discovered. So, before their use as genetic vectors becomes
widespread a thorough risk/benefit assessment should be made.
Same applies for "mirror" life.
or for anything else.
Quote:
IMHO (based on newspaper articles and not acquired first-hand)
viral gene therapy in general is not a good thing.
At this point there is _no_ accepted gene therapy treatment. It is all
still experimental, with many approaches being tried and evaluated.
The recent French trial with X-SCID has succeeded to the point that
several young kids are now alive and relatively healthy due to their
(viral) gene therapy treatment. Yet two of them have developed
leukemia, quite probably due to the treatment. The leukemia itself
seems treatable, and is less of a problem that the underlying disease
they are being treated for. Further, analysis of the side effect will
continue; perhaps it is a solvable problem.
Making generalities about viruses is unwarranted. It is as if you said
animals are dangerous, after being kicked by a horse. Viruses are very
diverse, and the viruses used for gene therapy will each need to be
considered on merit. The possibility of mirror viruses is intriguing
in that context; it requires evaluation of specific pros and cons.
bob |
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