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Multi-level Evolution, Origin of Central Dogma, and Minority Control
Biological systems are hierarchical : cells consist of molecules, multi-cellular organisms consist of cells, ecosystem consists of organisms. How such multi-level systems reproduce themselves and evolve with bioinformation emerged therein are basic questions to be solved.
Here, we consider multi-level evolution of protocells with mutually catalytic molecules. In such system, in general, each molecule tends to lose its catalytic activity in order to increase its replication rate, whereas the growth rate of the protocell is decreased by it (1-3). First, we show the condition for sustained growth of cells with keeping catalytic activity, given by the scaling relation between the molecule number in a cell and the mutation rate (1). Then, we show symmetry breaking between function and information in molecules emerges for cells with a larger volume to grow ; in other words, emergence of the central dogma in molecular biology (3). This symmetry breaking further leads to that with the number symmetry, resulting in the gain of evolvability in a minority-controlled system (4). If I have time, I may touch upon the application of multi-level evolution to human society (5).
The main part of this study is in collaboration with Nobuto Takeuchi at Auckland University (1-3).
(1)N Takeuchi, K Kaneko, P Hogeweg, Proc. R. Soc. B 283 (2015), 20153109 :
N Takeuchi, N Mitarai, K Kaneko arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.04421
(2)N Takeuchi, P Hogeweg, K Kaneko, Nature Communications 8 (2017), 250 ;
(3)N. Takeuchi and K, Kaneko, Proc. R. Soc. B 286 (2019) 20191359
(4)K, Kaneko, T. Yomo, J. theor. Biol. 214 (2002) : 563-576 ; A. Kamimura,
K. Kaneko, New J.Phys. 20 (2018), 035001 ; PRL 105 (2010)268103, ;
(5)K Itao, K Kaneko, PNAS 117 (2020), 2378-2384