Minimal self-replicating systems
نویسندگان
چکیده
Examples of chemical systems capable of templating and catalysing their own synthesis—self-replicating systems— have begun to appear in the chemical literature over the last 15 years. For the biologist, these systems represent a link with the origin of life—their study can shed light on prebiotic chemical evolution. However, for the synthetic chemist, they represent the ultimate synthetic machine, capable of templating the production of a large number of perfect copies of themselves from a single original molecule. In this Review, we describe the design and synthesis of synthetic minimal replicating systems and provide a general overview and critique of the field.
منابع مشابه
Minimal self-replicating systems.
Minimal self-replicating systems typically consist of three components: a product molecule, and two substrate molecules that become joined to form another product molecule. An important characteristic of self-replicating systems is the ability of the product to catalyze the formation of additional product, resulting in autocatalytic behavior. Recent advances in the area of self-replication have...
متن کاملSelf replicating systems
Chemical self-replicating systems have been the subject of various investigations over the last 20 years. This mini review outlines the design of minimal model systems, mainly based on oligonucleotides and on peptides and artificial compounds, which implement template-directed reactions. In order to examine the reaction mechanism and to attain an exponential replication the development of self-...
متن کاملTowards open-ended evolution in self-replicating molecular systems
In this review we discuss systems of self-replicating molecules in the context of the origin of life and the synthesis of de novo life. One of the important aspects of life is the ability to reproduce and evolve continuously. In this review we consider some of the prerequisites for obtaining unbounded evolution of self-replicating molecules and describe some recent advances in this field. While...
متن کامل050disk doc..050disk chapter .. Page141
Examples of chemical systems capable of templating and catalysing their own synthesis—self-replicating systems— have begun to appear in the chemical literature over the last 15 years. For the biologist, these systems represent a link with the origin of life—their study can shed light on prebiotic chemical evolution. However, for the synthetic chemist, they represent the ultimate synthetic machi...
متن کاملPropagation of Information in Populations of Self-Replicating Code
We observe the propagation of information in a system of self-replicating strings of code (“Artificial Life”) as a function of fitness and mutation rate. Comparison with theoretical predictions based on the reaction-diffusion equation shows that the response of the artificial system to fluctuations (e.g. velocity of the information wave as a function of relative fitness) closely follows that of...
متن کامل