Rockville (MD) – Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute appear to have successfully done the first species transplant by taking the DNA from one bacteria and implanting it into another. After several rounds of cell division, the target cells’ chromosomes had been completely replaced and the cells began behaving like the donor cells.

The institute’s Carole Lartigue, Ph.D., recently published the research in the journal Science. She and her colleagues took the DNA from the Mycoplasma mycoides bacteria and transferred it into another bacteria Mycoplasma capricolum. In effect she replaced one organism’s genome with the other.

The target cells eventually took on all the characteristics of the donor bacteria including protein and antibodies production. Lartigue discovered that all the expressed proteins in the new cells were the ones you would expect to be produced by m.mycoides bacteria.

Dr. Lartigue expects to make fully synthetic chromosomes in the near future that could be transplanted into a living organism. This would effectively lead to a new man-made species.