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Hereditas(Beijing) ›› 2021, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (2): 142-159.doi: 10.16288/j.yczz.20-301

• Review • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research progress of bacterial minimal genome

Jinyu Li1,2,3(), Shan Yang2,3, Yujun Cui2,3, Tao Wang1, Yue Teng2,3()   

  1. 1 School of Life Sciences, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300110, China
    2 Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100071, China
    3 State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing 100071, China
  • Received:2020-11-23 Online:2021-02-16 Published:2021-01-27
  • Supported by:
    the National Science and Technology Major Project(2018ZX10101003-002-011);the Major Infectious Diseases Such as AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Prevention and Control Technology Major Projects(2018ZX10712-001-003)

Abstract:

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.

Key words: bacteria, minimal genome, essential genes, synthetic biology, artificial design