文章基本信息

标题：Mutations in artificial self-replicating tiles: A step toward Darwinian evolution
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作者：Feng Zhou ; Ruojie Sha ; Heng Ni 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2021
卷号：118
期号：50
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2111193118
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance In nature, mutation is the first step of evolution, where it provides the genetic variation for the natural selection to act. Here we take a system of artificial self-replicating tiles, DNA origami, that exhibit templated reproduction. We can generate a small fraction of mutations by introducing a mismatch in hybridization between parent and daughter. We can modify the origami functionality to affect the growth rate of the mutated species, giving it less or more evolutionary advantage, and to become dominant in several generations. The introduction of mutations into an artificial self-replicating system provides new directions for research into self-assembly processes. Artificial self-replication and exponential growth holds the promise of gaining a better understanding of fundamental processes in nature but also of evolving new materials and devices with useful properties. A system of DNA origami dimers has been shown to exhibit exponential growth and selection. Here we introduce mutation and growth advantages to study the possibility of Darwinian-like evolution. We seed and grow one dimer species, AB, from A and B monomers that doubles in each cycle. A similar species from C and D monomers can replicate at a controlled growth rate of two or four per cycle but is unseeded. Introducing a small mutation rate so that AB parents infrequently template CD offspring we show experimentally that the CD species can take over the system in approximately six generations in an advantageous environment. This demonstration opens the door to the use of evolution in materials design.
关键词：artificial self-replication; mutation; Darwinian evolution; exponential growth; cross-tile DNA origami