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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 49: Physics of the Genesis of Life - Focus Session organized by Moritz Kreysing and Dieter Braun

BP 49.5: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 23. März 2017, 10:45–11:00, SCH A251

Thermally driven DNA phase transitions and protein expression — •Christof B. Mast¹, Mara L. Heinlein¹, Matthias Morasch¹, Noel Yeh Martin², Sheref Mansy², Hannes Mutschler³, and Dieter Braun¹ — ¹LMU Munich, Amalienstrasse 54, 80799 München, Germany — ²University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, 38123 Povo TN, Italy — ³Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany

Energy fluxes are the driving forces that push complex systems out of equilibrium into the living state. While modern organisms predominantly use chemical energy fluxes, we argue that the fundamental flux of heat energy across water filled pores was essential to jump start life four billion years ago: A thermal gradient drives thermal fluid convection and thermophoresis of bio-molecules, resulting in their massive and length selective accumulation. We demonstrate that this process is also selective for sequence and chirality which is essential for the emergence of the first functional, homochiral polymers. Starting from nanomolar concentrations of short and unbound single stranded DNA with a length of 36 bases, thermal trapping cooperatively increases their local concentration and length by hybridization, ultimately leading to the formation of a DNA hydrogel. Single mutations in sequence as well as strands of different chirality are spatially separated and therefore locally amplified during the hydrogel phase transition. We also show that thermal traps are compatible and enhance cell free protein expression, possibly mimicking a later stage during the origin of life.