Scientists Deciphering Genetic Code of Microbe

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have decoded the genetic sequence of a extremophiles bacteria which was found in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

This was the first time Chinese scientist have deciphered the genetic code of microbe.

Microbe is the generic term for a large group of very small living things, and microbiology is one of the world's frontier fields in genetic research.

In early 1998, Chinese researchers found a kind of extremophiles bacteria in the Boiling Spring in Yunnan Province, and since last April, scientists with the institutes of Genetics, Microbiology and Biophysics of the CAS, began to deciphering the genetic code of the bacteria.

To date, they have decoded more than 99 percent of the bacteria's genome.

Experts say that deciphering microbe genetic codes provide basic samples for the study of biological evolution, and at the same time improve the level of genome research in China.

The genetic code sequences of 26 kinds of microbes have been decoded by scientists worldwide.


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