Fig. 1: Applications of synthetic and synthetic-minimal genomes.
From: Trimming the genomic fat: minimising and re-functionalising genomes using synthetic biology
Synthetic genomes provide opportunities to better engineer and understand biology by: reducing the genome complexity by removing non-essential genes and improving genome stability by removing repetitive elements; increasing the predictability of rational design with less complex regulatory and metabolic networks; eliminating unnecessary genes, proteins, and metabolic pathways to free up biosynthetic capacity; and by testing fundamental biological hypotheses by generating new-to-nature genomes for high-throughput analysis.
