Postdoctoral fellow Taro Kobayashi of the Scientific Research National Center in France and Professor Hakuichi Ichihashi of the University of Tokyo have succeeded in spontaneously evolving the self-replication system of RNA, which is just a collection of substances, into various strains in vitro.

 In the pre-life era, there was a self-replicating system of molecules consisting of molecules such as RNA and short proteins, and it is imagined that their evolution created the diverse and complex biological world as it is today. There is.However, in the conventional self-replication system of molecules, evolution (change in the genetic composition of RNA population) stopped immediately, and it was not observed that it approached life.

 In this research, we have independently developed an RNA self-replication system using a reaction solution (cell-free translation reaction solution) that enables translation of RNA-encoded genes into proteins such as enzymes, based on the conventional molecular system. ..Using this system as a model for protocells, we conducted long-term evolutionary experiments in the laboratory for about 300 generations, and as a result, we succeeded in observing the evolutionary phenomenon of RNA, which is a substance, for the first time.

 In the experiment, first, parasitic RNA (parasitic RNA), which increases depending on the original RNA (host RNA), was spontaneously generated by RNA recombination.And both gained resistance to each other one after another.As a result of this evolutionary arms race (evolution that makes it stronger than the opponent), both host RNA and parasite RNA continue to evolve and differentiate into various types, and there is no sign that they will stop.

 This time, phenomena such as the evolution of diversity and sustainable evolution, which have been considered to be unique to living organisms, have been reproduced for the first time in a system consisting of non-living molecules.With the advent of parasites, even a molecule called RNA has become possible to evolve "just like a living organism."It is said that co-evolution with this parasite is the key to enabling the birth of life from matter.

Paper information:[ELIFE] Emergency and diversification of a host-parasite RNA ecosystem through Darwinian evolution

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