Protein to DNA synthesis using antiphage reverse transcriptase
Protein-Templated DNA Synthesis: Bacteria totally Just Broke a Fundamental Rule of Molecular Biology Reverse syntthesis of DNA strand from protein' amino acid sequences via action of Drt3b Credits: ai@ FST Title: Protein-templated synthesis of dinucleotide repeat DNA by an antiphage reverse transcriptase Authors: Pujuan Deng et al. (Stanford University / Alex Gao lab) Journal: Science (First Release, April 16, 2026) DOI: 10.1126/science.aed1656 The Big Deal For decades, the central dogma of molecular biology has held that nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) are synthesized using other nucleic acids as templates. DNA polymerases copy DNA from DNA; RNA polymerases copy RNA from DNA; reverse transcriptases copy DNA from RNA. Protein → nucleic acid information transfer? Strictly off-limits in the classic formulation. This new paper shows a bacterial defense enzyme that literally uses its own protein structure as a template to synthesize a specific DNA sequence. It's not full rev...