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Origin of life in a digital microcosm

Nitash C G, Thomas LaBar, Arend Hintze, Christoph Adami
Published 13 November 2017.DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0350
Nitash C G
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USABEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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Thomas LaBar
BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USADepartment of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USAProgram in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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Arend Hintze
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USABEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USAProgram in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USADepartment of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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Christoph Adami
BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USADepartment of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USAProgram in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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  • For correspondence: adami@msu.edu
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Abstract

While all organisms on Earth share a common descent, there is no consensus on whether the origin of the ancestral self-replicator was a one-off event or whether it only represented the final survivor of multiple origins. Here, we use the digital evolution system Avida to study the origin of self-replicating computer programs. By using a computational system, we avoid many of the uncertainties inherent in any biochemical system of self-replicators (while running the risk of ignoring a fundamental aspect of biochemistry). We generated the exhaustive set of minimal-genome self-replicators and analysed the network structure of this fitness landscape. We further examined the evolvability of these self-replicators and found that the evolvability of a self-replicator is dependent on its genomic architecture. We also studied the differential ability of replicators to take over the population when competed against each other, akin to a primordial-soup model of biogenesis, and found that the probability of a self-replicator outcompeting the others is not uniform. Instead, progenitor (most-recent common ancestor) genotypes are clustered in a small region of the replicator space. Our results demonstrate how computational systems can be used as test systems for hypotheses concerning the origin of life.

This article is part of the themed issue ‘Reconceptualizing the origins of life’.

Footnotes

  • One contribution of 18 to a theme issue ‘Re-conceptualizing the origins of life’.

  • Accepted May 31, 2017.
  • © 2017 The Author(s)
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28 December 2017
Volume 375, issue 2109
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, 				Physical and Engineering Sciences: 375 (2109)
  • Table of Contents
Theme issue ‘Re-conceptualizing the origins of life’ compiled and edited by Sara Walker and George Cody

Keywords

origin of life
Avida
digital life
information theory
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Origin of life in a digital microcosm
Nitash C G, Thomas LaBar, Arend Hintze, Christoph Adami
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2017 375 20160350; DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0350. Published 13 November 2017
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Research article:

Origin of life in a digital microcosm

Nitash C G, Thomas LaBar, Arend Hintze, Christoph Adami
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2017 375 20160350; DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0350. Published 13 November 2017

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