DSR · Dissipative Self-Replication
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-04-01 → 2019-03-31
- EU contribution
- €165,599
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Dissipative Self-Replication
The transition from chemistry into biology is one of the grand challenges in contemporary science. Approaching such a complex question would be easier if we had a clear definition of life. It is increasingly clear that we have to shed light on the missing link between the simplest living system and inanimate matter. In other words, we have to define all the essential ingredients that are necessary to fabricate life-like systems. The main prerequisites for life as we know it, are replication, mutation and selection. The systems should be able to undergo Darwinian evolution. Laboratory processes are mostly designed such that the (closed) system goes thermodynamically downhill. Yet the chemistry of life operates in a very different way: Most molecules from which living systems are constituted are turned over continuously and are not necessarily thermodynamically stable. The overall aim of this project was to achieve Darwinian evolution of self-replicating molecules. Thus, replication will be operated far-from-equilibrium under conditions where replication and replicator destruction occur simultaneously. In order to survive, replicators need to replicate faster than they are being destroyed. By allowing replicators to mutate and by exposing the mutant distributions to changing conditions, those mutants that replicate fastest in the new environment will thrive. Thus, the systems exhibit all aspects of Darwinian evolution: replication, mutation and selection.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This research project aims to address one of the Grand Challenges in contemporary science: the de-novo synthesis of life. More specifically we aim to achieve, for the first time, Darwinian evolution in a system of fully synthetic molecules. This ambitious aim may be reached by combining the expertise of the experienced researcher on out-of-equilibrium systems with the expertise of the host lab on self-replicating molecules. This combination will enable replication to be operated out of equilibrium. The central idea is to run the self-replicating molecules in a regime where replication and replicator “death” are competing processes. Replicators only survive as long as they replicate faster than they are destroyed. The simplest implementation of such regime is a flow system in which replicator building blocks are continuously flown in, while outflow of part of the replicator solution constitutes replicator “death” through a process of (non-selective) physical removal. In addition to replication, two more ingredients are required for Darwinian evolution: mutation and selection of the mutants that are best adapted to their environment. To realise those elements, we will create a mixture of replicator mutants by offering a mixture of different building blocks. Alteration of fitness parameters (by altering the environment) should shift the mutant distribution towards the replicators that are best adapted to the new environment. Environmental parameters that will be explored include flow systems with thermal gradients (selectively trapping replicators that assemble into long fibers) and co-solvents and salts (affecting the supramolecular interactions that hold the replicator assemblies together).
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN · GroningenCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union