title: The dawn of evolutionary genome engineering.
abstract: Genome engineering strategies--such as genome editing, reduction and shuffling, and de novo genome synthesis--enable the modification of specific genomic locations in a directed and combinatorial manner. These approaches offer an unprecedented opportunity to study central evolutionary issues in which natural genetic variation is limited or biased, which sheds light on the evolutionary forces driving complex and extremely slowly evolving traits; the selective constraints on genome architecture; and the reconstruction of ancestral states of cellular structures and networks.
authors.affiliation: Synthetic and Systems Biology Unit, Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, H-6726, Hungary.
authors.forename: Csaba
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pál
authors.affiliation: Synthetic and Systems Biology Unit, Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, H-6726, Hungary.
authors.forename: Balázs
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Papp
authors.affiliation: Synthetic and Systems Biology Unit, Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, H-6726, Hungary.
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pósfai
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D022202:Chromosomes, Artificial, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry; D019020:Directed Molecular Evolution / Q000379:methods*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D005815:Genetic Code; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D005838:Genotype; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D010641:Phenotype