| TECHNOLOGY |
Authors used a DNA-shuffling technique to breed bacteria that produce novel carotenoids. The technique involved taking gene fragments from different bacterial species and combining them to form a large variety of carotenoid genes, which were then expressed in bacterial host cells.
One of the resulting products, a carotenoid called torulene, is not produced by any known bacteria. According to the researchers, the DNA-shuffling approach "may allow the discovery and production, in simple laboratory organisms, of new compounds that are essentially inaccessible from natural sources or by synthetic chemistry."
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