Dresden 2014 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 2: DNA/RNA and related enzymes
BP 2.1: Vortrag
Montag, 31. März 2014, 09:30–09:45, ZEU 250
Thermal disequilibrium causes natural selection of replicating DNA — •Moritz Kreysing1,2, Lorenz Keil1, Simon Lanzmich1, Christof Mast1, Stephan Krampf1, and Dieter Braun1 — 1Systems Biophysics, LMU Munich, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Here we report on experimental findings that a mere temperature gradient across a sub-millimeter sized compartment can be used to filter bio-molecules from dilute solutions. Because the characteristics of this thermophoretically based filter are strongly non-linear with regard to polymer length, the through-flow system is able to accumulate exclusively long polymers, as firstly shown here by the length selective fractionation of solute DNA strands. Exploiting convectively driven temperature cycles [1], the trapped DNA is additionally able to replicate in a PCR type manner. As we demonstrate, the combination of length selective accumulation and replication renders this compartment a niche in which heterogeneous populations of DNA strands are subject to a selection pressure in favor of molecular complexity, a so far unresolved prerequisite to the onset of Darwinian evolution [2].
References: 1) C. Mast and D. Braun, PRL, 104:188102 (2010), 2) D. Mills, L. Peterson, S. Spiegelman, PNAS, 58:217 (1967)