Emergence of genetic heredity at the origins of cells

The emergence of genetic heredity at the origin of life and its restructuring in eukaryotic cells are related questions, as both involve the transition to selection on cells rather than genes. Our work on the origin of life in structured, far-from-equilibrium hydrothermal systems suggests that the first genes arose in protocells with an autotrophic proto-metabolism, which prefigured the core of biochemistry. Function and information emerged in this environment through direct physical interactions between amino acids and the nucleotide bases that encode them, driving protocell growth and amplifying metabolism. We can offer a range of projects relating to the emergence of genetic complexity in this context. Experimental projects will relate to the polymerization of nucleotides to form short RNA strands, and their interactions with amino acids using analytical methods such as NMR linked to molecular dynamics simulations. Population genetic modelling will address the differentiation of mRNA, tRNA, rRNA and DNA and the origins of coding. Population-genetic modelling could also be applied to a second major transition, the emergence of eukaryotes through the endosymbioses in archaea giving rise to mitochondria (and later the parallel acquisition of chloroplasts). Eukaryogenesis required the evolution of meiotic sex to support massive genomic re-organization and expansion of nuclear DNA, and the loss and differentiation of mtDNA through selection at the level of cells.