Synthetic evolving systems that implement a user-specified genetic code of arbitrary design.

ABSTRACT: A synthetic genetic system, based on cross-replicating RNA enzymes, provides a means to evaluate alternative genetic codes that relate heritable information to corresponding molecular function. A special implementation of encoded combinatorial chemistry was used to construct complex populations of cross-replicating RNA enzymes in accordance with a user-specified code that relates genotype and phenotype on a molecule-by-molecule basis. The replicating enzymes were made to undergo self-sustained Darwinian evolution, resulting in the emergence of the most advantageous variants. These included both highly active enzymes that sustained the population as a whole and poorly active enzymes that survived as parasites of the active molecules. This evolutionary outcome was a consequence of the inform

SUBMITTER: Sczepanski JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3483592 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature