Spontaneous Emergence of Self-Replicating Molecules Containing Nucleobases and Amino Acids

Liu, Bin; Pappas, Charalampos G.; Ottelé, Jim; Schaeffer, Gaël; Jurissek, Christoph; Pieters, Priscilla F.; Altay, Meniz; Marić, Ivana; Stuart, Marc C. A.; Otto, Sijbren

doi:10.1021/jacs.9b10796

Cited by 49 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The first 24 hours revealed a mixture of differently sized mixed building block macrocycles (Figure 1 b), however, after 7 days, the DCL was dominated by two major species: cyclic trimer (1 b) 2 2 1 and foldamer 2 15 , Figure 1. UPLC analysis reveals a) a complex, mixed DCL made from building blocks 1 a (1.0 mM) and 2 (1.0 mM), published previously; [14] b) a DCL of macrocycles after 36 hours upon combining 1 b (1.0 mM) and 2 (1.0 mM); c) self-sorting into two distinct species (1 b) 2…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Self‐Sorting in Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries Leads to the Co‐Existence of Foldamers and Self‐Replicators

et al. 2021

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Nature segregates fundamental tasks such as information storage/transmission and catalysis between two different compound classes (e.g. polynucleotides for replication and folded polyamides for catalysis). This division of labor is likely a product of evolution, raising the question of how simpler systems in which replicators and folded macromolecules coexist may emerge in the transition from chemistry to biology. In synthetic systems, achieving co-existence of replicators and foldamers in a single molecular network remains an unsolved problem. Previous work on dynamic molecular networks has given rise to either self-replicating fibers or well-defined foldamer structures (or completely un-sorted complex systems). We report a system in which two cross-reactive dithiol (nucleobase-and peptide-based) building blocks self-sort into a replicator fiber and foldamer that both emerge spontaneously and co-exist. The self-sorting behavior remains prevalent across different building block ratios as two phases of emergence occur: replicator growth followed by foldamer formation. This is attributed to the autocatalytic formation of the replicator fiber, followed by enrichment of the system in the remaining building block, which is subsequently incorporated into a foldamer.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Self‐Sorting in Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries Leads to the Co‐Existence of Foldamers and Self‐Replicators

et al. 2021

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“…A person is an independent agent at the meter scale. A cell is an independent agent at the micrometer scale, and so on down to the molecular and atomic levels [58,[172][173][174][175][176]. Moving in the opposite direction, the random and intrinsic fluctuations at scales below a given Markov blanket are progressively suppressed [32].…”

Section: Self-similarity Cooperation Cognition and Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science-Driven Societal Transformation, Part I: Worldview

Boik

2020

Sustainability

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Humanity faces serious social and environmental problems, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Increasingly, scientists, global policy experts, and the general public conclude that incremental approaches to reduce risk are insufficient and transformative change is needed across all sectors of society. However, the meaning of transformation is still unsettled in the literature, as is the proper role of science in fostering it. This paper is the first in a three-part series that adds to the discussion by proposing a novel science-driven research-and-development program aimed at societal transformation. More than a proposal, it offers a perspective and conceptual framework from which societal transformation might be approached. As part of this, it advances a formal mechanics with which to model and understand self-organizing societies of individuals. While acknowledging the necessity of reform to existing societal systems (e.g., governance, economic, and financial systems), the focus of the series is on transformation understood as systems change or systems migration—the de novo development of and migration to new societal systems. The series provides definitions, aims, reasoning, worldview, and a theory of change, and discusses fitness metrics and design principles for new systems. This first paper proposes a worldview, built using ideas from evolutionary biology, complex systems science, cognitive sciences, and information theory, which is intended to serve as the foundation for the R&D program. Subsequent papers in the series build on the worldview to address fitness metrics, system design, and other topics.

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“…A key step in the origin of life is the formation of a metabolic network that is both self-sustaining and collectively autocatalytic (Arsène et al, 2018;Hayden et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2020;Vaidya et al, 2012;Vasas et al, 2012;Xavier et al, 2020). Systems that combine these two general properties have been studied within a formal framework that is sometimes referred to as RAF theory (Hordijk & Steel, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Expected Number of Viable Autocatalytic Sets in Chemical Reaction Systems

Kauffman

Steel

2021

Artificial Life

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The emergence of self-sustaining autocatalytic networks in chemical reaction systems has been studied as a possible mechanism for modeling how living systems first arose. It has been known for several decades that such networks will form within systems of polymers (under cleavage and ligation reactions) under a simple process of random catalysis, and this process has since been mathematically analyzed. In this paper, we provide an exact expression for the expected number of self-sustaining autocatalytic networks that will form in a general chemical reaction system, and the expected number of these networks that will also be uninhibited (by some molecule produced by the system). Using these equations, we are able to describe the patterns of catalysis and inhibition that maximize or minimize the expected number of such networks. We apply our results to derive a general theorem concerning the trade-off between catalysis and inhibition, and to provide some insight into the extent to which the expected number of self-sustaining autocatalytic networks coincides with the probability that at least one such system is present.

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Spontaneous Emergence of Self-Replicating Molecules Containing Nucleobases and Amino Acids

Cited by 49 publications

References 53 publications

Self‐Sorting in Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries Leads to the Co‐Existence of Foldamers and Self‐Replicators

Self‐Sorting in Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries Leads to the Co‐Existence of Foldamers and Self‐Replicators

Science-Driven Societal Transformation, Part I: Worldview

The Expected Number of Viable Autocatalytic Sets in Chemical Reaction Systems

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