5 cutting-edge papers in synthetic biology by 2025! All from Nature and Science, renowned teams both domestically and internationally

1. Eating Coenzyme Q10? Chinese scientists create world's first 'Q10 rice' published in journal: Cell | Research team: Academician Chen Xiaoya, Gao Caixia team

Coenzyme Q10 is a key antioxidant for human heart health, but daily staple foods such as rice are almost free of it.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences team used evolutionary analysis and machine learning to accurately identify the five key amino acid sites that determine the length of the coenzyme Q side chain, and successfully upgraded rice from naturally synthesized coenzyme Q9 to synthesized coenzyme Q10 using gene editing technology.

The content of coenzyme Q10 in the seeds of the new variety of rice reaches 5 μ g/g, and does not affect yield - this means that in the future, a bowl of rice may be able to supplement the daily requirement of coenzyme Q10.

2. Cracking the plastic recycling dilemma: Deep learning uncovers "super depolymerase" Published in Science | Research team: Wu Bian/Cui Yinglu team (National Key Laboratory of Green Biomanufacturing)

More than 22 million tons of polyurethane waste are generated globally each year, and traditional chemical recycling by-products are difficult to treat and cause significant pollution.

The Wu Bian team developed an intelligent computing framework called GRASE, which combines graph neural networks with protein stability prediction models. They searched for a needle in a haystack from a massive database and discovered a new type of urease ADPURase.

The enzyme maintains ultra-high activity in industrial grade high concentration diethylene glycol solvents and can efficiently hydrolyze polyurethane glycolysis by-products into raw monomers with a recovery rate of over 94%.

3. Designing protein catalysts from scratch: Artificial enzymes achieve high stereoselectivity for cyclopropanation. Journal: Science | Research team: William DeGrado (UCSF) et al

Is it difficult for natural enzymes to catalyze non natural reactions? The University of California team has constructed an artificial protein NovoChrome containing iron porphyrin cofactors through de novo protein design, which can efficiently catalyze the cyclopropanation reaction of styrene with stereoselectivity far exceeding that of natural systems.

Even more astonishing is that the protein is stable in 70% ethanol, undergoes thermal denaturation at temperatures exceeding 90 ° C, and can be further optimized through directed evolution.

This work proves that it is possible to customize "biocatalysts" with ideal performance to assist in green pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals.

4. Are locusts no longer a plague? Scientists accurately turn off the cluster pheromone switch Published in Nature | Research team: Kang Le (Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Lei Xiaoguang (Peking University)

Long term reliance on broad-spectrum insecticides for locust plague prevention and control incurs high ecological costs. The Kangle and Lei Xiaoguang teams have for the first time fully analyzed the biosynthetic pathway of the locust swarm pheromone 4VA, identified the key methyltransferase 4VPMT1/2, and designed a highly specific small molecule inhibitor 4-nitrophenol based on this.

This inhibitor can competitively block the generation of 4VA, thereby "silencing" locust aggregation behavior.

This strategy does not kill insects, only interferes with their communication, and is expected to change the mode of pest control.

5. New era of chromosome level editing: Mb scale DNA achieves "scarless surgery" Published in Cell | Research team: Gao Caixia (Institute of Genetics and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

CRISPR is good at "cutting and pasting" a few bases, but it is still helpless when it comes to editing large fragments of millions of bases.

The Gao Caixia team developed the PCE/RePCE system, which integrates asymmetric Lox sites, engineered Cre recombinase, and guided editing technology. 

For the first time, it achieves precise insertion, deletion, inversion, and translocation of megabase (Mb) chromosomes in animal and plant cells without leaving any traces of exogenous sequences.

This technology will greatly accelerate crop breeding, disease model construction, and even artificial genome synthesis.