Publication
Nature has the ability of circularly re-using its components to produce the molecules and materials it needs. An example is the ability of most living organisms of digesting proteins they feed off into amino acids and then using such amino acids in the ribosomal synthesis of new proteins. Recently, it has been shown that such recycling of proteins can be reproduced outside living organisms. The key proteins' feature that allows for this type of recycling is their being sequence-defined polymers. Arguably, nature's most famous sequence-defined polymer is DNA. Here it is shown that it is possible, starting from sheared calf-DNA, to obtain all four nucleotides as monophosphate-nucleotides (dNMPs). These dNMPs are phosphorylated in a one-pot, multi-enzymes, phosphorylation reaction to generate triphosphate-nucleotides (dNTPs). Finally, dNTPs so achieved (with a global yield of similar to 60%) are used as reagents for PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to produce target DNA strands, and for the diagnosis of targeted DNA by quantitative PCR (qPCR). This approach is an efficient, convenient, and environmentally friendly way to produce dNTPs and DNA through recycling according to the paradigm of a circular economy.