Speaker
Description
Many hypotheses attempt to explain how life started, but there is none that is unanimously accepted. Two of the most popular hypotheses is the RNA World hypothesis and the Metabolism-first hypothesis. The Metabolism-first hypothesis suggests that life originated from ordered chemical reactions that increased in complexity over time, whereas the RNA World hypothesis favours the idea of information molecules (RNA) replicating without support from other molecules. Even though there is no accepted theory on the origin of life, it seems energy and information play a fundamental role. For any living system to replicate itself, it needs to be able to store its blueprint and have the energy to assemble new copies.
In this project the aim is to simulate the evolution of protometabolic pathways in the hopes of determining whether metabolic networks could have evolved through the random mutation of catalytic molecules. The model aims to simulate the possible evolution of protometabolic pathways in alkaline hydrothermal vents that could be found in the Archean Ocean around 4.6 billion years ago. A subset of metabolic reactions was obtained from the essential metabolism of an organism called JCVI Syn 3.0. The minimal genome of JCVI Syn 3.0 was created by altering the genome of Mycoplasma mycoides and it consists of 338 reactions that is estimated to be the minimal number of reactions to sustain life. Through the combination of a starting set of reactions and a possible environment the model will try to simulate a possible way that protometabolic networks could have evolved.
