Camena Bioscience uses gSynth to synthesize a 2.7kb plasmid

Synthetic biology company, Camena Bioscience, has announced the achievement of another significant DNA synthesis technology milestone. Using gSynth, a novel multi-enzymatic de novo DNA synthesis and gene assembly technology, Camena Bioscience has produced a whole plasmid of 2.7kb.

The ability to read, write and manipulate DNA is essential for synthetic biologists to investigate and engineer biological pathways. Over the last 20 years, there have been significant developments in DNA sequencing (reading) and DNA manipulation technologies, but DNA synthesis has not improved at a similar pace. Previously, Camena Bioscience analysed the accuracy of gSynth by producing a series of 300 nucleotide DNA fragments and benchmarking them against phosphoramidite synthesis, which was the existing ‘gold-standard’ technology. This work highlighted the superior DNA synthesis accuracy of gSynth. However, the coding sequence of the average human gene is just over 1000 nucleotides long and therefore, to support the expanding needs of synthetic biologists, any new DNA synthesis technology must be able to produce long DNA molecules.

To demonstrate gSynth’s ability to produce long DNA molecules, Camena Bioscience accurately reproduced the DNA sequence of pUC19, a 2.7kb plasmid commonly used within the field. Plasmids are circular double-stranded DNA molecules that replicate within bacteria and are commonly used synthetic biology tools. Achieving this length of DNA synthesis is a significant milestone that demonstrates the utility of gSynth and enables a new range of synthetic biology applications, including the synthesis of genes for protein production and engineering of bacteria.

"While we have demonstrated gSynth is a highly accurate DNA synthesis technology, it was critical to show that it can also produce longer, gene-length, DNA molecules,” said Camena Bioscience CEO, Steve Harvey. “Our aim is to support the rapidly expanding synthetic biology market and this new milestone highlights how gSynth can enable the development of new and exciting synthetic biology products.”

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