Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 20: Posters - Physics of the Genesis of Life (Focus Session)
BP 20.13: Poster
Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 14:00–16:00, P1A
Reversible cooperation of molecular replicators — •Georg Urtel1,2, Thomas Rind2, and Dieter Braun2 — 1Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Laboratoire Jean Perrin, 4 place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France. — 2Braun Lab, LMU Munich, Amalienstraße 54, 80799 München, Germany.
For evolution to occur, information-carrying molecules have to replicate their information into new molecules before their own degradation. One class of prebiotically plausible molecules capable of carrying information are oligonucleotides. In random sequences, hairpin molecules are ubiquitous [1]. Replication mechanisms typically require an initiation site on the template to start replication (e.g. [2]). Due to their self-complementarity, hairpins replicate exponentially using only one primer. But, the secondary structure inhibits the initiation site and the hairpin replicators grow slow and go extinct even when degradation is weak. Our experiments show how two hairpin species with similar loop sequence can overcome this problem by a reversible cooperation termed 'crossbreeding'. In this mechanism, new species emerge which lose the secondary structure, but keep the sequence information. These crossbreeds replicate more efficient, outgrow the hairpins and survive strong dilutions. The mechanism can be reversed and hairpins can regrow under changed conditions, showing that their information is preserved in the process. [1] B. Obermayer et al., PRL, 107, 018101 (2011). [2] D. P. Horning et al., PNAS, 21, 9786 (2016).