In a world barely nascent, scientists can create mirror images of the building blocks of life, including DNA, RNA, and protein, and use them to build a mirror image of life itself. This fantastic endeavor is not an easy task. A major challenge is to create versions of enzymes, the workhorses for biosynthesis in cells, as mirror images. Fan et al. created a high-fidelity mirror image Pfu DNA polymerase. They used this enzyme to assemble a stretch of mirror image DNA containing 1500 mirror image nucleotides. The idea is that this DNA can be used as secure information storage to evade the threat of degradation by enzymes in natural organisms and the environment. Mirror image DNA survives much longer in environmental water samples than its natural counterpart. The next step is to find out how mirror biotechnology can be used to bring real-life benefits.
Nat. Biotechnol. 10.1038/s41587-021-00969-6 (2021).
