Schematic illustration of the evolving synthetic replicator system (IMAGE)
Caption
A population of the two mutants can undergo Darwinian evolution through mutation and selection, adapting to a change in the environment caused by the replicators themselves. The two replicator mutants, a six-ring and a three-ring, compete for a common building block. Both replicators can produce singlet oxygen when irradiated with light, causing a change in the oxidation state of their environment. At a high oxidation state, the hexamer can no longer replicate efficiently, while trimer replication stalls at a low oxidation state. These effects result in the adaptation of the replicator population to a change in oxidation level, which, in turn, depends on the light intensity. This behaviour shows that natural selection can also act outside biology on systems of man-made molecules.
Credit
Otto Lab, University of Groningen
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License
CC BY-SA