Anthropic announced on Wednesday (23) that an operation with about 950 Claude agents identified a previously uncharacterized enzymatic system while analyzing large DNA databases. Dubbed array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART), the system has repeated sequences similar to those found in CRISPR, but its biological function is still unknown.
The discovery came from a genome mining campaign, a process of searching for genes and biological systems that are still poorly understood in large sequence databases. The agents worked for 21 hours, consumed 210 million tokens and gathered more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases, enzymes capable of copying RNA into DNA.
From that universe, the system identified approximately 3,500 candidates and narrowed the selection to the 20 considered most promising for detailed analyses. According to Anthropic, similar work can require weeks or months of investigation by specialized researchers.
During the search, Claude detected an unusual family of reverse transcriptases and found, near the enzyme's gene, a repetitive DNA sequence. Subsequent analysis led researchers to characterize ART, found mainly in bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria.
Function of ART still needs to be determined
The system combines a reverse transcriptase, an associated gene and a long sequence of regularly spaced DNA repeats. The structure resembles the arrays found in CRISPR, which participate in systems capable of recognizing specific sequences of genetic material.
The comparison, however, has important limits. Anthropic itself states that the main function of ART is still not known and there is no demonstration that the system has gene-editing capacity equivalent to that of CRISPR. Initial experiments showed that the array produces distinct small RNAs, but further tests will be needed to determine how it works.
The reverse transcriptase involved had already been identified previously. What the research found was the association of the enzyme with the non-coding DNA array and an accessory protein whose function also remains unknown.
The work is part of Anthropic's biological research operation in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although Claude takes part in the search for candidates, generation of hypotheses and interpretation of data, the physical experiments continue to be carried out by human scientists.
The results were released in a preprint and are still at an early stage. Further experiments should determine the function of ART and whether the system could have future applications in biotechnology.
