title: Unknown unknowns: essential genes in quest for function.
abstract: The experimental design of a minimal synthetic genome revealed the presence of a large number of genes without ascribed function, in part because the abstract laws of life must be implemented within ad hoc material contraptions. Creating a function needs recruitment of some pre-existing structure and this reveals kludges in their set-up and history. Here, we show that looking for functions as an engineer would help in discovery of a significant number of those, proposed together with conceptual handles allowing investigators to pursue this endeavour in other contexts.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cardiometabolism and Nutrition, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, 47 boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75013, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Danchin
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, New York University Shanghai Campus, 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, 200122, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fang
mesh_terms: D001686:Biological Phenomena; D020043:Genes, Essential; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods