How are scientists able to artificially synthesize the virus?
The world's first artificial virus was synthesized at the end of 2003 by a research team led by Craig Venter, who was also responsible for the first sequencing of the human genome. The virus was a bacteriophage Phi-X174 (bacteria) whose genome has 5,000 pairs of bases or nucleotides. By comparison, the human genome has about 3 billion couples of bases.
Children's palsy virus, with 7,500 pairs of bases, was also synthesized from scratch. The Phi-X174 synthesis was a quick task-it took only two weeks with contemporary technology. Synthesization of other viria lasted months. Because biologists have been synthesizing oligonucleotides for years, there are DNA synthesis machines that are able to automatically produce them. The design of oligonucleotides for the Phi-X174 virus took only eight hours, followed by a four-day synthesis process.
The next step is to clean oligonucleotides with a gel electrophoresis. Purified oligos are then marked with special chemicals and assembled gradually, one by one, in a process called PCA (polymerase cyclingline -up). After 35 to 70 cycles, a full chromosome made of artificial oligos was synthesized. Using PCR (polymerase chain reaction), many copies of the original chromosome are created, the best of which are selected using another gel cleaning cycle. These nucleotide chains are then circularized from their linear chromosomal forms and become infectious.
Infectious chromosomes (VIRII) are then transplanted into an agar plate containing bacteria for consumption. In one day you can find remnants of viral activity and self -eplication, which shows that the synthesis has been successful.
The synthesis of artificial viruses has been discussed for applications such as decreased pollution and advanced filtering. Specialized microbes can be created to consume almost anything. On the other hand, there is always a risk that the harmful party uses this technology to create a virus designed forHigh virulence or flying against human hosts.