Breakthrough Tracker record
Engineered bacterial ribosomes translated proteins encoded in their own RNA
Kasra Alizadeh and colleagues fused a protein-coding sequence to 16S ribosomal RNA, creating Ribo-M and tethered Ribo-TM systems that translated proteins encoded on the same RNA scaffold in cells and in vitro.
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- Stable ID
biology-ribosome-self-translation-engineering-2026- Revision
biology-ribosome-self-translation-engineering-2026.v1- Field
- Biology · Synthetic biology, ribosome engineering and origins of translation
- Evidence
- Tier 1 · Peer reviewed: Yes
- Record state
- Current · Peer-reviewed experimental result
- Last checked
AI role
The article does not disclose a substantive AI role in the research or writing.
Record details
- Problem or result
- Whether a ribosome can synthesize a protein encoded within its own ribosomal RNA
- Authors
- Kasra Alizadeh, Dorota Klepacki, Nora Vázquez-Laslop and Alexander S. Mankin
- Institutions
- University of Illinois Chicago, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Center for Biomolecular Sciences
- Result date
- Published in Nature September 2, 2026
Why it matters
Self-encoding translation provides a route to ribosomes committed to a chosen product, supporting orthogonal protein manufacturing and experimentally grounding a possible bridge in RNA-world models.
Limits
The work used engineered bacterial systems, not a fully self-replicating ribosome or autonomous cell. Production performance and generality remain to be established, and three authors are named on a pending patent covering the Ribo-M and Ribo-TM designs.
Sources
Correction and revision history
- 2026-09-04 — Added after primary-source, scope, status, AI-role and limitation review.
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