Recently, the international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.
Key points
- Mirror Chirality in Molecules
- Mirror bacteria are constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature.
- Life on Earth is built on molecules of specific chirality (handedness): DNA is right-handed, and proteins use left-handed amino acids.
- Mirror molecules, or their assemblies, are the reverse of natural ones.
- Immune System Vulnerability
- Immune systems across species recognize and defend against pathogens based on the shape of their molecular components.
- Mirror bacteria, with reversed chirality, could bypass these defenses as their shapes wouldn’t align with immune recognition systems.
- Progress Toward Mirror Life
- The work is driven by fascination and potential applications.
- Scientists have made strides in creating molecules and even simple systems with reversed chirality.
- Fully functional mirror bacteria remain a decade or more away but could become feasible with continued advances in synthetic biology.
- Mirror molecules could be turned into therapies for chronic and hard-to-treat diseases, while mirror microbes could make bioproduction facilities, which use bugs to churn out chemicals, more resistant to contamination.
Potential Risks:
- Uncontainable Infections
Mirror bacteria could establish themselves in the environment, spreading unchecked due to immune system blind spots. - Ecological Disruption
These organisms could outcompete natural species or disrupt ecosystems by evading predators and other natural controls. - Bioweapon Potential
The deliberate misuse of mirror bacteria poses serious biosecurity concerns.
