DNA is made of ATCG, it might be possible to replace A with Z

[HAL9000]

DNA is composed of four standard nucleotides, each with a different nucleobase: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G).

It might be possible to replace A with Z, 2-aminoadenine (Z).

In the world of microbial warfare, sometimes you have to change the very fabric of who you are.

Viruses that infect bacteria – fittingly called bacteriophages - and their prey have been at war for eons, each side evolving more devilish tactics to infect or destroy each other. Eventually, some bacteriophages took this arms race to a new level by changing the way they code their DNA.

At least, that's what we think happened. Once thought to be an outlier, new research published in three separate papers shows that there's a whole army of bacteriophages with non-standard DNA, which researchers call a Z-genome....

This makes the viral genome hardier and more difficult for bacteria to prise apart with chemicals called nucleases.

Some Viruses Have a Completely Different Genome to The Rest of Life on Earth

In the world of microbial warfare, sometimes you have to change the very fabric of who you are.

www.sciencealert.com

Small step forward in understanding how biology can function with different building blocks, it might be useful knowledge when searching for exterrestrial life in the solar system.

 

[gentlegreen]

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[existentialist]

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An irrefutable point.

 

[gentlegreen]

I was getting novel proteins and novel amino acids confused.
Proper Frankenstein stuff - spot that there's extra coding capacity ...
I suppose it's inevitable speculation would have started so early...

Alloprotein - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[IC3D]

Viruses have a very interesting role in human evolution with more questions than answers but i doubt i can offer much to the discussion

 

[NoXion]

Thinking closer to home, I wonder if this discovery has any implications for synthetic biology.

 

[HAL9000]

Thinking closer to home, I wonder if this discovery has any implications for synthetic biology.

in the article it says..

A third group, led by Université Paris-Saclay synthetic biologist Valerie Pezo, corroborated those findings and analysed an enzyme – called DpoZ – which is responsible for assembling the whole Z-genome together.

so may be.