Bacteria build non-natural proteins using non-natural DNA

The capacity of life to use alternative biochemistries has been demonstrated by researchers in the US, who have shown for the first time that the workhorse bacterium Escherichia coli can be engineered to use non-natural base pairs in its DNA to make proteins containing non-natural amino acids.¹

While the replication of DNA containing non-natural base pairs has been reported before, this is the first time that the increased information they make available has been used in living cells.

It raises the possibility that life on other worlds might not use the same biochemical basis as ours.