Compositional complementarity and prebiotic ecology in the origin of life

Hunding, Axel; Képès, François; Lancet, Doron; Minsky, Abraham; Norris, Victor; Raine, Derek; Sriram, K.; Root‐Bernstein, Robert

doi:10.1002/bies.20389

Cited by 100 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…To study the putative Darwinian evolution of compositional assemblies (14,28), what has to be done is to integrate selection coefficients in the GARD kinetic model for the catalyzed growth of assemblies (Eq. 1) within the Eigen framework of replication-mutation dynamics expressed by Eq.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life

Vasas

Szathmáry

Santos

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

171

131

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A basic property of life is its capacity to experience Darwinian evolution. The replicator concept is at the core of genetics-first theories of the origin of life, which suggest that self-replicating oligonucleotides or their similar ancestors may have been the first "living" systems and may have led to the evolution of an RNA world. But problems with the nonenzymatic synthesis of biopolymers and the origin of template replication have spurred the alternative metabolism-first scenario, where self-reproducing and evolving proto-metabolic networks are assumed to have predated self-replicating genes. Recent theoretical work shows that "compositional genomes" (i.e., the counts of different molecular species in an assembly) are able to propagate compositional information and can provide a setup on which natural selection acts. Accordingly, if we stick to the notion of replicator as an entity that passes on its structure largely intact in successive replications, those macromolecular aggregates could be dubbed "ensemble replicators" (composomes) and quite different from the more familiar genes and memes. In sharp contrast with templatedependent replication dynamics, we demonstrate here that replication of compositional information is so inaccurate that fitter compositional genomes cannot be maintained by selection and, therefore, the system lacks evolvability (i.e., it cannot substantially depart from the asymptotic steady-state solution already built-in in the dynamical equations). We conclude that this fundamental limitation of ensemble replicators cautions against metabolismfirst theories of the origin of life, although ancient metabolic systems could have provided a stable habitat within which polymer replicators later evolved.autocatalysis | graded autocatalysis replication domain model | units of evolution O nce beyond the abiogenic synthesis and accumulation of a variety of complex organic compounds on Earth took place (1), the conceivable paths toward life's emergence have been dominated by two fundamentally different views in origin-of-life research: the genetics-or replication-first approach (2), and the metabolism-first scenario (3). Both schools acknowledge that a critical requirement for primitive evolvable systems (in the Darwinian sense) is to solve the problems of information storage and reliable information transmission (4, 5). Disagreement starts, however, in the way information was first stored. All present life is based on digitally encoded information in polynucleotide strings, but difficulties with the de novo appearance of oligonucleotides and clear-cut routes to an RNA world (but see ref. 6), wherein RNA molecules had the dual role of catalysts and information storage systems (7,8), have provided continuous fuel for objections to the genetics-first scenario (9, 10).As emphasized by Kauffman (11), metabolism-first theories suggest that life, in a deep sense, crystallized as a collective selfreproducing metabolism in a space of possible organic reactions. A critical property of such systems must ...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life

Vasas

Szathmáry

Santos

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

171

131

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“…Present ideas on the origins of life do not look for a primordial organism, but for a kind of pre-biotic chemical ecosystem, inside partially closed environments [5,6]. In these environments complicated molecules evolved from chains of atoms or from simpler molecules and became linked in hyper-cycles of reactions [7,8], where genetic material flowed easily.…”

Section: From Atoms To Eukaryotic Cells Plants and Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution: Much More than Genetics. The Need for a Holistic View~!2009-09-30~!2009-10-30~!2009-12-24~!

Terradas¹,

Peñuelas²

2010

TOEVOLJ

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Since Darwin's time we have known that natural selection, acting upon variations, is the key to understanding biological evolution. After passing through the filter of natural selection, these changes generate new life-forms. Such lines of thought are still widely advocated today in science, but many non-scientists continue to accept creationism, Lamarckism and other ideas not supported by evidence. Even though many books and papers are published yearly to explain Darwinian evolution, and many documentary films are shown on TV, resistance to Darwinian evolution does not decrease. In fact, it is on the increase, not only in the USA but recently also in Europe. Perhaps those of us who write and lecture on Darwinian evolution are doing something wrong. For example, many books on the subject emphasize genetic mechanisms, although it is obvious that the evolution of the genome alone cannot suffice to explain the evolution of life on Earth in all its manifestations. In this paper we present an all-embracing vision of the evolution of life --a coevolutionary process that is not strictly biological but also environmental, social and cultural, and which takes into account the important role played by incorporations and interactions in networks. We believe that it is only by emphasizing the continuity between matter on the one hand and biological, social and cultural evolution on the other that the gap between micro-and macro-evolution can be filled in an understandable way for non-scientists in need of a comprehensive view.

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“…Another notable example is the storage and transmission of compositional information, as manifested in the GARD model. Here, it is the counts of molecules within a protocellular entity, rather than the sequence of subunits in an informational biopolymer, that is being transmitted to progeny [28,29,31]. This is in analogy to the epigenetic transmission of maternal mRNA counts to a daughter cell.…”

Section: Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multi-scaled approach to artificial life simulation with P systems and dissipative particle dynamics

Smaldon

Blakes

Krasnogor

et al. 2008

Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation

Self Cite

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Compartmentalisation is thought to have been a crucial step in the origin of life. To help us bridge the gap between selfassembly processes behind the formation of bio-compartments and metabolic and information bearing processes we refer to DPD and P Systems Simulations. In this paper we outline a new software platform linking a high level abstract computational formalism (P Systems) with a molecular scale model (Dissipative Particle Dynamics) by linking the membranes which delimit the cellular regions within P Systems to self-assembled phospholipid based vesicles in DPD. We test the platform by modelling a passive transport process involving vesicles containing membrane inclusions similar to pore complexes such as α-hemolysin. In doing so, we illustrate the usefulness of the modelling approach and derive a more realistic parameter set for the P system through the dissipative particle dynamics simulation.

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Compositional complementarity and prebiotic ecology in the origin of life

Cited by 100 publications

References 102 publications

Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life

Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life

Evolution: Much More than Genetics. The Need for a Holistic View~!2009-09-30~!2009-10-30~!2009-12-24~!

A multi-scaled approach to artificial life simulation with P systems and dissipative particle dynamics

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