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RE: PNAs: An amazing molecular tool that can be converted into an effective antibiotic
I hope that at least some people whose expertise is not molecular biology will discover this post and understand that science went well beyond the "ordinary life" with the molecules capable of mimicking the DNA.
I have a strange question. There are some experiments that showed the possibility to inherit the artificial nucleotides. Is it possible to do something similar with the PNA?
(*99% that the enzymes will not be able to continue...)
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure of the answer myself, but I think that an unmodified organism would not be able to incorporate PNA nucleotides into their DNA because their DNA assembly enzymes can't recognize the PNA. However, genetically modifying an organism to produce enzymes designed to insert PNA into DNA strands might be possible. It would be a hell of a challenge at any rate, but work on creating artificial nucleotide is already challenging so who knows.
It would also take adding entire metabolic pathways so that the cells would produce the different PNAs. DNA and RNA differ by a single change of a hydrogen and a hydroxyl group at the #2 carbon of the ribose sugar and that small change is enough to specify the ability of enzymes to bind to the slightly different macromolecules. So, another complication is that any protein that has DNA-binding capability would not be able to recognize the PNA.
Good point.