Hypercycles versus parasites in the origin of life: model dependence in spatial hypercycle systems

Cronhjort, Mikael

doi:10.1007/bf01581586

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…We believe that it can greatly help researchers who want to better understand this topic. As it has been previously shown that the methodology has a great impact on results and may therefore lead to varied interpretations [48], we propose to use multi-agent-based modeling to increase the precision of the model. We investigated the role of different attributes that characterize the agents and stability of the system consisting of interacting replicases and parasites, as well as its evolutionary dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the origins of life: The dual role of RNA replicases as an obstacle to evolution

et al. 2017

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Despite years of study, it is still not clear how life emerged from inanimate matter and evolved into the complex forms that we observe today. One of the most recognized hypotheses for the origins of life, the RNA World hypothesis, assumes that life was sparked by prebiotic replicating RNA chains. In this paper, we address the problems caused by the interplay between hypothetical prebiotic RNA replicases and RNA parasitic species. We consider the coexistence of parasite RNAs and RNA replicases as well as the impact of parasites on the further evolution of replicases. For these purposes, we used multi-agent modeling techniques that allow for realistic assumptions regarding the movement and spatial interactions of modeled species. The general model used in this study is based on work by Takeuchi and Hogeweg. Our results confirm that the coexistence of parasite RNAs and replicases is possible in a spatially extended system, even if we take into consideration more realistic assumptions than Takeuchi and Hogeweg. However, we also showed that the presence of trade-off that takes into the account an RNA folding process could still pose a serious obstacle to the evolution of replication. We conclude that this might be a cause for one of the greatest transitions in life that took place early in evolution—the separation of the function between DNA templates and protein enzymes, with a central role for RNA species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the origins of life: The dual role of RNA replicases as an obstacle to evolution

et al. 2017

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“…This system is capable of maintaining its diversity, but its evolvability is very limited [15], and it is unstable in both the ecological [16] and the evolutionary [17,18] sense. The spatial version of the hypercycle [19] does not perform much better either [20][21][22].…”

Section: Prebiotic Evolution I: Self-replicating Macromoleculesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Diversity, stability, and evolvability in models of early evolution

Scheuring

Szilágyi

2019

Current Opinion in Systems Biology

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Based on the RNA world hypothesis we outline a possible evolutionary route from infrabiological systems to early protocells. To assess the scientific merits of the different models of prebiotic evolution and to suggest directions for future research we investigate the diversity maintaining ability, evolutionary/ecological stability and evolvability criteria of existing RNA world model systems for the origin of life. We conclude that neither of the studied systems satisfies all of the above criteria, although some of them are more convincing than the others. Furthermore, we found that the most conspicuous features of the proposed prebiotic evolutionary scenarios are their increasing spatial inhomogeneity along with increasing plasticity, evolvability and functional diversity. All of these characteristics change abruptly with the emergence of the protocells.

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“…We aim to analyse the explanatory power and applicability of these models in the context of the three criteria explicated in the Introduction above. Specifically, our analysis includes the following models: The Quasispecies model (QS) [ 1 , 22 ] The Hypercycle (HC), spatial hypercycle (SHC) [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], compartmentalized hypercycle (CHC) [ 27 ] models The Parabolic replicators (PR) model [ 17 ] The Stochastic Corrector model (SCM) [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ] The Open chaotic flow (OCF) model [ 31 , 32 ] The Metabolically Coupled Replicator System (MCRS) model [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ] Trait Group Models (TGM) [ 39 , 40 ] …”

Section: Models Of Prebiotic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Hypercycle (HC), spatial hypercycle (SHC) [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], compartmentalized hypercycle (CHC) [ 27 ] models…”

Section: Models Of Prebiotic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology and Evolution in the RNA World Dynamics and Stability of Prebiotic Replicator Systems

Szilágyi

Zachar

Scheuring

et al. 2017

Life

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As of today, the most credible scientific paradigm pertaining to the origin of life on Earth is undoubtedly the RNA World scenario. It is built on the assumption that catalytically active replicators (most probably RNA-like macromolecules) may have been responsible for booting up life almost four billion years ago. The many different incarnations of nucleotide sequence (string) replicator models proposed recently are all attempts to explain on this basis how the genetic information transfer and the functional diversity of prebiotic replicator systems may have emerged, persisted and evolved into the first living cell. We have postulated three necessary conditions for an RNA World model system to be a dynamically feasible representation of prebiotic chemical evolution: (1) it must maintain and transfer a sufficient diversity of information reliably and indefinitely, (2) it must be ecologically stable and (3) it must be evolutionarily stable. In this review, we discuss the best-known prebiotic scenarios and the corresponding models of string-replicator dynamics and assess them against these criteria. We suggest that the most popular of prebiotic replicator systems, the hypercycle, is probably the worst performer in almost all of these respects, whereas a few other model concepts (parabolic replicator, open chaotic flows, stochastic corrector, metabolically coupled replicator system) are promising candidates for development into coherent models that may become experimentally accessible in the future.

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Hypercycles versus parasites in the origin of life: model dependence in spatial hypercycle systems

Cited by 15 publications

References 8 publications

Simulating the origins of life: The dual role of RNA replicases as an obstacle to evolution

Simulating the origins of life: The dual role of RNA replicases as an obstacle to evolution

Diversity, stability, and evolvability in models of early evolution

Ecology and Evolution in the RNA World Dynamics and Stability of Prebiotic Replicator Systems

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