keep in mind that the enzyme itself isnt "bulky" exactly. its a long fused thread of amino acids with different areas of chemical sensitivity, and to the extent that the amino acid thread is holding itself together it is often by incredibly tenuous bonds
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in order to get a protein to even work as intended it has to be printed off of DNA (LONG STORY) and then typically folded into the correct shape by other proteins if the folding goes badly usually it just doesnt work as an enzyme and gets chopped up
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(occasionally for certain enzymes if the folding goes very badly it turns itself into an enzyme whose function is to turn working enzymes into misfolded enzymes and oh shit now you are going to die)https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6554/475 …
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all of this is to say that the sons of bitches who published this have managed to take an unfathomably complex and incredibly delicate molecular machine developed over god knows how many millions of years such that its orientation is the same in all known life,
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and somehow managed to get this entire 3D configuration perfectly inverted to work on DNA that is DNA it just spins the wrong way im in awe
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eigenrobot Retweeted eigenrobot
a few end notes the reason they want to make a "DNase" ie an enzyme that chops up DNA is because all of the existing DNases only work on D-DNA and so if they keep making this shit it will be hard to dispose of elegantly I guess?https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1420952819901755393?s=19 …
eigenrobot added,
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RNA polymerase is a molecule that goes down a DNA strand and translates the DNA into instructions for making protein. they made a left hand version of this too apparentlypic.twitter.com/IVRzAxYqbf
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ribosomes are enormous multi-part protein machines that take RNA and turn it into proteins left is sort of what ours looks like, right is a bacterial version I guess they're making these nextpic.twitter.com/uE9ZMFNsyf
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overall I dont know what the fuck is going on but the fact that this is not only possible but an accomplished feat is making me think that molecular biology is way more advanced than is commonly understood and things are gonna get Weird real real fast good luck out there
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Replying to @eigenrobot
Look into the AlphaFold project that uses google’s deep mind. They are working on predicting protein folding from an mRNA or DNA sequence. Will allow easy production of designer proteins.
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yeah, I saw they had been making incredible progress lately im more optimistic about the expected uses of such technology because at least it doesnt obviously have the potential to extinguish life on earth
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