Recoded E. coli strain shows that life can function with significantly compressed genetic code

Synthetic bacteria

Source: © Larissa Ulisko/MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Researchers remove seven codons from E. coli’s genetic code

A strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) with a synthetic genetic code comprising just 57 codons, rather than the standard 64, is the most significantly recoded organism to date. The new strain, named Syn57, demonstrates that life can function with a significantly compressed genetic code.