Bacteria with the smallest genome contain genes necessary for self-sustaining replication only, giving the organisms advantages to serve as a potential industrial production platform. Many strains with reduced genomes have been constructed, owing to the development of high-throughput DNA sequencing and synthesis technology. This review first describes the concept of minimal genomes, summarizes the relevant research progress of bacterial essential genes, then systematically lists the work related to artificial reduction and synthesis of bacterial genomes, finally discusses the technical obstacles and limitations encountered in the process of designing and constructing reduced genomes, hoping to provide a theoretical basis for the experiment and application of artificially synthesized genomes.
具有最小基因组的细菌只包含维持自我生命复制所必需的基因,其作为一种潜在的工业生产平台具有诸多优势。由于高通量DNA测序和合成技术的发展,目前已经构建了多种缩减基因组的菌株。本文首先介绍了最小基因组的概念,其次总结了细菌必需基因的相关研究进展,然后梳理了人工缩减与合成微生物基因组的相关工作,最后探讨了在设计和组装基因组的过程中遇到的技术障碍和限制,以期为人工合成基因组的实验与应用提供理论参考。.
Keywords: artificial design; bacteria; essential genes; minimal genome; synthetic biology.