Synthetic virology is a branch of

virology Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, th ...

engaged in the study and engineering of synthetic man-made

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...

es. It is a multidisciplinary research field at the intersection of virology,

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

, computational biology, and

DNA nanotechnology DNA nanotechnology is the design and manufacture of artificial nucleic acid structures for technological uses. In this field, nucleic acids are used as non-biological engineering materials for nanotechnology rather than as the carriers of geneti ...

, from which it borrows and integrates its concepts and methodologies. There is a wide range of applications for synthetic viral technology such as medical treatments, investigative tools, and reviving organisms.

Constructing ''de novo'' synthetic viruses

Advances in genome sequencing technology and

oligonucleotide Oligonucleotides are short DNA or RNA molecules, oligomers, that have a wide range of applications in genetic testing, research, and forensics. Commonly made in the laboratory by solid-phase chemical synthesis, these small bits of nucleic acids ...

synthesis paved the way for construction of synthetic genomes based on previously sequenced genomes. Both RNA and

DNA virus A DNA virus is a virus that has a genome made of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that is replicated by a DNA polymerase. They can be divided between those that have two strands of DNA in their genome, called double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses, and ...

es can be made using existing methods. RNA viruses have historically been utilized due to the typically small genome size and existing reverse transcription machinery present. The first man-made infectious viruses generated without any natural template were of the polio virus and the φX174 bacteriophage. With synthetic live viruses, it is not whole viruses that are synthesized but rather their genome at first, both in the case of DNA and RNA viruses. For many viruses, viral RNA is infectious when introduced into a cell (during infection or after reverse transcription). These organisms are able to sustain an infectious life cycle upon introduction ''in vivo''.

Applications

This technology is now being used to investigate novel vaccine strategies. The ability to synthesize viruses has far-reaching consequences, since viruses can no longer be regarded as extinct, as long as the information of their genome sequence is known and permissive cells are available. As of March 2020, the full-length genome sequences of 9,240 different viruses, including the

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

virus, are publicly available in an online database maintained by the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. Synthetic viruses have also been researched as potential

gene therapy Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human DN ...

tools.

References

External links

*First synthetic polio virus (2002) – *First synthetic bacteriophage, φX174 (2003) –
Codagenix
– Synthetic virology technology to investigate novel vaccine strategies
SynVaccine
– Synthetic virology technology to investigate novel vaccine strategies
West Nanorobotics
– Metamorphic bacteriophage MV-28 (2019),Chimeric bacteriophage MV-3 (2018), Extremophile chickenpox vector CPV-2 (2017), and Multivalent viral vector MRHHS MV-5 (2016), synthetic virology technology to investigate anti-bacterial viruses and gene therapy vectors for cancer History of virology Synthetic biology {{virus-stub

Constructing ''de novo'' synthetic viruses

Applications

See also

References

External links