Mix two DNA strands in one cell, what happens? Random speculative idea...

[heng]

Just some crazy lazy sunshine break idea while low on motivation and high on caffeine...

The "Bambooquoia" ("Sequamboo"?)

take a cell of a bamboo sprout.

carefully extract the nucleus from one cell.

take a seed of a sequioa.

carefully insert bamboo cell nucleus into seed cell.

let it grow.

obviously you will need to be very precise with your microsurgery. i am not talking about just dumping the nucleus into the starch. rather than really inserting it into a living cell. probably several, as i doubt that a plant seed will have a single-cell stage at this time.

what would happen?

would it refuse to sprout?

would it be a normal sequioa with some strange behaviour? a bamboo with bark?

any biologists have an idea?

if you try this, tell us!

PS:

i assume the experiment has been done on bacterial level already...? anyone knows anything about that? E.Colis with a bamboo addition? Yeast with tomatoe DNA?

remember, i am not talking about genesplicing. i know about horizontal gene transfer. not what i had in mind. and not just a mix of different but whole cells, either. a complete genome. the whole nucleus - that's what i think of.

and before you ask: i am not anywhere near of sufficiently sophisticated lab equipment

PPS:

yes, that is exactly what i mean: two sets of DNA combined. not just a replacement, an addition. "fuzzy dunlop".... :-D it's all in the game...

Edited June 11, 2015 by heng

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

You can certainly replace to nucleus of a cell. And if you replace the nucleus of an embryo then you end up with an organism that is (nearly*) genetically identical to the organism the nucleus came from. As the organism grows, the nucleus reproduces itself but the rest of the cell is coded by the nucleus. So the new organism would almost entirely resemble the organism that donated the nucleus.

That is assuming that you remove the old nucleus, which I suspect you'd have to do because I don't think an embryonic cell will tollerate having multiple nucleuses (or if it does it will probably divide into two cells, and then you'll have two disticnt lineages, one of which will outcompete the other).

Also this works best with closely related organisms, it definitely works within the same species (in fact in the UK we're now doing this to cure some genetic diseases). It can work with closely related species (like cows and guars, I seem to recall). Bamboo and Sequioa are not closely related, their last common ancestor may have lived 300 million years ago, so I wouldn't bet on nuclear transfer being viable.

*I say nearly identical because the the mitrochondria and, in plants, chloroplasts have their own DNA and that would continue to be present in the new organism.

[tater]

Or just use CRISPR and splice them wherever you like.

[KerikBalm]

i assume the experiment has been done on bacterial level already...? anyone knows anything about that? E.Colis with a bamboo addition? Yeast with tomatoe DNA?

#1) Bacteria don't have a nucleus.

#2) Cells have many strands of DNA, your title should replace the word "strands" with "genomes"

#2) They have replaced the genome of one bacteria with the genome of a closely related bacterial species, it worked.

As to the rest, they aren't likely to work... the transcription factors are different, the metabolic needs are different, the protein and lipid composition is different... the cell would not be a suitable host for the new genome, or the new genome would screw up the cell and it would die during the transition.

remember, i am not talking about genesplicing. i know about horizontal gene transfer. not what i had in mind. and not just a mix of different but whole cells, either. a complete genome. the whole nucleus - that's what i think of.

yes, that is exactly what i mean: two sets of DNA combined. not just a replacement, an addition. "fuzzy dunlop".... :-D it's all in the game...

You should read up about cell hybridization:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9648102

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22066/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_fusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridoma_technology

You can fuse mouse and human cells...

It may work in cell culture, but you won't get a viable embryo, nor will it be stable.

Or just use CRISPR and splice them wherever you like.

I use CRISPR, I suspect you just read about it and don't work in a lab (correct me if I am wrong).

Its not so simple.

CRISPR is good for cutting up a genome.... that's it...

Of course, cells will try to fix their genome, and you can get splicing in response to the cut.

You can't splice in an entire genome... additions of that sort are still done via homologous recombination... which you won't get if you just inject a whole genome that is very dissimilar.

You can do it gene by gene, adding homology arms... but the OP specifically excluded gene splicing.

[heng]

You should read up about cell hybridization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_fusion

wow. it's not only decades old, it has been successfully done, and has actual industrial use... 0.0

faszinating... thanks for the link!

[tater]

Kerikbalm, no, I'm not a bio person. I was talking to my neighbor who is a biologist at a national lab about it last weekend over lunch, and it seems pretty cool, I'm a total layperson in that area

[Skyler4856]

If I recall correctly, there was some controversy regarding the use of a similar technique to allow a mother to treat a mitochondrial issue in an unborn child.

[KSK]

I always thought TALENs were pretty neat too.

Interesting question. My best guess (as a sort of biologist) is that your double nucleated cell won't be viable and won't develop into any sort of plant. Normally, having the wrong number of chromosomes in a cell is bad (for varying definitions of bad) and that's when the chromosomes are all from the same species.

Caution - wonky computer analogy approaching.

Imagine two BASIC programs, or any other language (if there are any) when line numbers are a thing. Shuffle them together and run. It might work but most probably won't.

[Kryten]

Some plants do get along just fine with whole duplicate genomes of different parent species (common wheat infamously has three), but that's still only with close relatives and a single nucleus. Having two nuclei severely interferes with cellular replication, and causes chromosomal abnormalities if a cell does manage to replicate, making it unlikely you'd be able to get a recognisable plant in any case.

[KerikBalm]

If I recall correctly, there was some controversy regarding the use of a similar technique to allow a mother to treat a mitochondrial issue in an unborn child.

That was with TALENs... with CRISPRs, you need to be able to get RNA into the mitochondria, which is.... difficult...

TALENs and CRISPRs have very similar effects, CRISPRs are just a lot easier to make (TALENS are a pain in the **** to make, a CRISPR construct consists of ordering $20 worht of primers, and half a day's work to make).

The mitochondrial "issue" only works if there is a good copy in the mitochondria. You can use the TALENs to cut up the mutated DNA and leave only the good DNA.

If all the mitochondrial DNA has the mutation, there's not much you can do

[Findthepin1]

put bamboo genes into arctic lichen and set it loose on mars

btw i almost wrote "bamboo jeans" lol

[Skyler4856]

put bamboo genes into arctic lichen and set it loose on mars

btw i almost wrote "bamboo jeans" lol

The nutrient requirements might make that challenging...

[KerikBalm]

There are so many things wrong with his idea... I didn't think it was even worth responding too.

Btw, lichen isnt even a single species... it has at a minimum least 3 distinct genomes:

Fungal nuclear genome

Fungal Mitochondrial genome

+

Symbiote genomes (Algae, or 1 or more species of cyanobacteria)

In the event that it has 1 species of algae as a symbiote... there are 5 genomes present:

Fungal nuclear genome

Fungal Mitochondrial genome

Algal nuclear genome

Algal mitochondrial genome

Algal chloroplast genome

To which genome do you want to add your bamboo genes?

There is no evidence that lichen can grow or survive long term on mars (that is not what that paper showed, it showed something survived a period some simulated martian conditions without entering a metabolically inert state like a bacterial endospore... it did not show growth or long term viability - they also provided it with light but no UV light for a "sheltered" condition, but in such a condition, the visible light should have also been reduced)

And adding bamboo genes to any one of those genomes doesn't sound like a good idea... for reasons already stated earlier in the thread.