Importance of Genome Design

With the rapid development of genome sequencing, bioinformatics, and DNA design programs, as well as the reduced gene synthesis costs, synthetic biology has become a readily applied approach to creating new biological systems. Rapid technological advances have enabled the design and construction of entire genomes. Large-scale genome design and reconstruction is a direct test of the authenticity, integrity, and accuracy of current biological knowledge. It is very important for the systematic evaluation of current design principles to match the actual sequence with the design sequence. Even a very small nucleotide change in the whole genome may impact the phenotype.

Genome design is the basis of synthetic biology. It is crucial to ensure that the novel sequence can support the expected functions and achieve efficient and scalable assembly. The synthetic genome has good application potential in basic research, energy, medicine, environment, and many other fields because of its remarkable improvement in genetic stability and operational flexibility.

Figure 1. Timeline of synthetic genomics milestones from the 1900s to 2017. (Wang L, et al., 2018)