Andrés Moya 1,2,3 , Rosario Gil 1,2,3 , Amparo Latorre 1,2,3 , Juli Peretó 1,2,4 , Maria Pilar Garcillán-Barcia 5 & Fernando de la Cruz 51 Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat de València, València, Spain; 2 CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Madrid, Spain; 3 Departament de Genètica, Universitat de València, València, Spain; 4 Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Universitat de València, València, Spain; and 5 Departamento de Biología Molecular, Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain
Recent technical and conceptual advances in the biological sciences opened the possibility of the construction of newly designed cells. In this paper we review the state of the art of cell engineering in the context of genome research, paying particular attention to what we can learn on naturally reduced genomes from either symbiotic or free living bacteria. Different minimal hypothetically viable cells can be defined on the basis of several computational and experimental approaches. Projects aiming at simplifying living cells converge with efforts to make synthetic genomes for minimal cells. The panorama of this particular view of synthetic biology lead us to consider the use of defined minimal cells to be applied in biomedical, bioremediation, or bioenergy application by taking advantage of existing naturally minimized cells.
