ArticleNature communications2024
Darwinian Evolution of Self-Replicating DNA in a Synthetic Protocell.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Combinatorial Optimization of Protein Systems in Synthetic Cells.ACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
- Design of Fuel-Dependent, Complex-Coacervate-Based Synthetic Cells.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- A self-replicating artificial module-genome that generates bacterial chromosome replication system in vitro.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Image-based phenotypic sorting of synthetic cells.Science advances · 2026Article
- Autocatalytic selection of gene functions in synthetic cells.Communications biology · 2026Article
- DNA affects the phenotype of fuel-dependent coacervate droplets.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Highly mutagenic continuous evolution in E. coli using a Φ29-based orthogonal replication system.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
- A synthetic cell with integrated DNA self-replication and lipid biosynthesis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Autonomous biogenesis of all thirty proteins of the Escherichia coli translation machinery.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Functions and applications of enzymes in nucleic acid nanotechnology.Journal of nanobiotechnology · 2025Review
- Orchestrating Self-Replication in Artificial Cells with Digital Microfluidics.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2025Article
- Synthetic cells by the numbers.iScience · 2025Review
- MOSAIC: A Highly Efficient, One-Step Recombineering Approach to Plasmid Editing and Diversification.ACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- Genetically Encoded Control ofACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- Reconstituting alternative life using the test-bed of cell-free systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Evo-Inspired Engineering of Radical Phenotypes and Emergent Traits.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Simultaneous in vitro expression of minimal 21 transfer RNAs by tRNA array method.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Building a Synthetic Cell Together.Nature communications · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Replication, heredity, and evolution are characteristic of Life. We and others have postulated that the reconstruction of a synthetic living system in the laboratory will be contingent on the development of a genetic self-replicator capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. Although DNA-based life dominates, the in vitro reconstitution of an evolving DNA self-replicator has remained challenging. We hereby emulate in liposome compartments the principles according to which life propagates information and evolves. Using two different experimental configurations supporting intermittent or semi-continuous evolution (i.e., with or without DNA extraction, PCR, and re-encapsulation), we demonstrate sustainable replication of a linear DNA template - encoding the DNA polymerase and terminal protein from the Phi29 bacteriophage - expressed in the 'protein synthesis using recombinant elements' (PURE) system. The self-replicator can survive across multiple rounds of replication-coupled transcription-translation reactions in liposomes and, within only ten evolution rounds, accumulates mutations conferring a selection advantage. Combined data from next-generation sequencing with reverse engineering of some of the enriched mutations reveal nontrivial and context-dependent effects of the introduced mutations. The present results are foundational to build up genetic complexity in an evolving synthetic cell, as well as to study evolutionary processes in a minimal cell-free system.
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