Darwinism from Artificial Genomes

十年前，美国宇航局委托国家科学院调查已知的生命极限，发展生命的一般理论，并提出可能在宇宙中发现外星生命的方法。该学院建议合成生物学成为解决生命科学中这些重大问题的工具。合成生物学超越了描述生物学，描述生物学只研究地球上自然历史给我们的一个生命例子。 该项目实施合成生物学来研究DNA替代品的可行性，DNA是地球上生命遗传的主要单位。 该项目还强调公共宣传努力和对早期职业科学家的培训。 支持达尔文进化论的新型合成化学系统将通过该项目提供，这符合MCB对“合成生物学......捕获机械，定量和进化方法的力量”的强调。这种“外星人”达尔文生物聚合物将有四个信息构建块（PZBS，假设为最佳数量），一个杂环骨架（假设为达尔文主义所必需）和杂环间氢键（假设为方向性所必需），在遗传信息的传递中，就像标准的GACT DNA一样。这将是第一个不包含任何自然构建块的达尔文系统的例子。此外，PZBS DNA将“瘦”和“胖”配对添加到沃森-克里克大小互补配对、标准GACT DNA不可用的信息结构和功能。 PZBS DNA将被化学合成和表征。支持PZBS生物聚合物扩增的聚合酶将通过区室化的自我复制进化。对于测序，将使用音译技术对GACTPZ六字母DNA进行测序;创造性地重新利用这一技术将对PZBS DNA进行测序。然后将PZBS文库置于选择压力下以进化功能性PZBS分子。晶体学将被应用于整个推进核酸理论作为PZBS系统是先进的。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

A decade ago, NASA commissioned the National Academy to survey what was known about the limits of life, develop a general theory of life, and suggest ways that alien life might be found in the cosmos. The Academy recommended that synthetic biology be a tool to address such big questions in life science. Synthetic biology goes beyond descriptive biology, which investigates only the one example of life that the natural history on earth has given us. This project implements synthetic biology to examine the plausibility of alternatives to DNA, which is the primary unit of heredity of life on earth. This project also emphasizes a public outreach effort and the training of early career scientists. A novel synthetic chemical system that supports Darwinian evolution will be delivered through this project, which fits the MCB emphasis on "synthetic biology…capturing the power of mechanistic, quantitative, and evolutionary approaches". The "alien" Darwinian biopolymer will have four informational building blocks (PZBS, hypothesized as an optimal number), a polyelectrolyte backbone (hypothesized necessary for Darwinism), and inter-heterocycle hydrogen bonding (hypothesized required for directionality) in the transfer of genetic information as standard GACT DNA does. This will be the first example of a Darwinian system that does not include any natural building blocks. Further, PZBS DNA adds "skinny" and "fat" pairing to Watson-Crick size-complementary pairing, informational structures and functionality unavailable to standard GACT DNA. PZBS DNA will be synthesized chemically and characterized. Polymerases to support PZBS biopolymers amplification will be evolved by compartmentalized self-replication. For sequencing, a transliteration technique to sequence GACTPZ six-letter DNA will be used; creative re-purposing of this will sequence PZBS DNA. PZBS libraries will then be placed under selection pressure to evolve functional PZBS molecules. Crystallography will be applied throughout to advance nucleic acid theory as the PZBS system is advanced.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.