The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation
At the start of life, the origin of a primitive genome required individual replicators, or genes, to act like enzymes and cooperatively copy each other. The evolutionary stability of such enzymatic cooperation poses a problem, because it would have been susceptible to parasitic replicators that did...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Research
2019
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| _version_ | 1826282869857714176 |
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| author | Levin, S Gandon, S West, S |
| author_facet | Levin, S Gandon, S West, S |
| author_sort | Levin, S |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | At the start of life, the origin of a primitive genome required individual replicators, or genes, to act like enzymes and cooperatively copy each other. The evolutionary stability of such enzymatic cooperation poses a problem, because it would have been susceptible to parasitic replicators that did not act like enzymes but could still benefit from the enzymatic behaviour of other replicators. Existing hypotheses to solve this problem require restrictive assumptions that may not be justified, such as the evolution of a cell membrane before the evolution of enzymatic cooperation. We show theoretically that, instead, selection itself can lead to replicators grouping themselves together in a way that favours cooperation. We show that the tendency to physically associate with others and cooperative enzymatic activity can coevolve, leading to the evolution of physically linked cooperative replicators. Our results shift the empirical problem from a search for special environmental conditions to questions about what types of phenotypes can be produced by simple replicators.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:50:21Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:862e16c4-50f5-4e82-bc17-ef5415b56d00 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:50:21Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Nature Research |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:862e16c4-50f5-4e82-bc17-ef5415b56d002022-03-26T22:02:17ZThe social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperationJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:862e16c4-50f5-4e82-bc17-ef5415b56d00EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordNature Research2019Levin, SGandon, SWest, SAt the start of life, the origin of a primitive genome required individual replicators, or genes, to act like enzymes and cooperatively copy each other. The evolutionary stability of such enzymatic cooperation poses a problem, because it would have been susceptible to parasitic replicators that did not act like enzymes but could still benefit from the enzymatic behaviour of other replicators. Existing hypotheses to solve this problem require restrictive assumptions that may not be justified, such as the evolution of a cell membrane before the evolution of enzymatic cooperation. We show theoretically that, instead, selection itself can lead to replicators grouping themselves together in a way that favours cooperation. We show that the tendency to physically associate with others and cooperative enzymatic activity can coevolve, leading to the evolution of physically linked cooperative replicators. Our results shift the empirical problem from a search for special environmental conditions to questions about what types of phenotypes can be produced by simple replicators. |
| spellingShingle | Levin, S Gandon, S West, S The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title | The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title_full | The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title_fullStr | The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title_full_unstemmed | The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title_short | The social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
| title_sort | social coevolution hypothesis for the origin of enzymatic cooperation |
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