Anannya Roy, Amity University Kolkata
What did Oscar Wilde mean when he said-“Life imitates art more than art imitates life”? We as biologists concern ourselves with the Science of life and indeed it is not uncommon that, quite often the art of discovery derives its inspiration from nature itself.
Synthetic Biology is a modern interdisciplinary field that uses the principles of engineering to create biological components that are not found naturally in the living world. These synthetic components, mimic or imitate the naturally evolving organisms but are manipulated or customized to fight diseases.
A team of Bioengineers at the Arizona State University worked in this field and developed a process of inserting synthetic gene circuits into the cells of host organisms. This technique opens the gate for the treatment of a wide variety of diseases. A paper entitled “Winner-Takes-All resource competition redirects cascading cell fate transitions” was published in Nature Communications, in which the cell circuits were reconfigured in such a way that they did not overwhelm the host cells. The circuits in the chain perform different functions but the biggest challenge is to compete for limited resources in the cell. There are cases in which 90% of the cell’s resources are consumed by one gene circuit, leaving only 10% for the remaining circuit.
In this research, the scientists found a new way to insert individual gene circuits into multiple host cells that work collectively. Since each cell will perform a specific function, the undesired competition for resources is eliminated.
It is believed that this work holds the key to cure the disease Cancer that has tormented mankind for many decades. The majority of the deaths caused are due to Metastasis, which is the spread of cancer to other cells of the body. There are different types of cells present in a cancer mass, out of which a few provide a positive response to chemotherapy while others resist it. This is called treatment resistance. This synthetic gene circulatory configuration will prevent cells from undergoing metastasis, thus reducing the chances of treatment resistance.
If Cancer treatment is successful using this technique, then that day is not far when we will start treatment of other life-threatening diseases ultimately improving the scale of global healthcare.
Also read:D614G: NEW CORONAVIRUS MUTATIONS MAKES THE VIRUS EIGHT TIMES MORE INFECTIOUS
ReferencesZhang, R., Goetz, H., Melendez-Alvarez, J. et al. Winner-takes-all resource competition redirects cascading cell fate transitions. Nat Commun 12, 853 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21125-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21125-3
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