Controlled Evolution In A Test Tube Produces Artificial Enzymes

By Clay Dillow Posted 01.31.2013 at 4:14 pm 10 Comments

Artificial Enzymes From Evolution This visual explainer should clarify the process. University of Minnesota / Peggy Rinard

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have just created an artificial enzyme in a test tube by following the rules of natural selection.

This artificial enzyme likely resembles what enzymes looked like billions of years ago, when life began evolving.

Enzymes created in laboratories typically follow principles of rational enzyme design, in which researchers develop a preconceived idea of what an enzyme should be, model it on a computer, and then influence its development to produce the molecule that they want.

By contrast, this new enzyme, developed by Burckhard Seelig’s lab at UM’s College of Biological Sciences, was developed in the same way enzymes evolve in nature. A large quantity of candidate proteins were placed together in culture and screened with every successive generation for their ability to perform a desired function (in this case, joining two pieces of RNA together). Unlike rational enzyme design, this approach isn’t limited by what the researchers know about enzyme structure. All the researchers really need to know is what they want from the enzyme. Evolution finds the best way to get there.

Enzymes are manipulated for use in all kinds of things, from manufacturing processes to fuel refinement to the development of new food products. Industry uses both natural and artificial enzymes for specific purposes, as they catalyze the chemical reactions that generate desired processes and products. Now, the ability to generate enzymes by evolutionary means could lead to whole new applications for tailored enzymes that aren’t achievable with rational enzyme design.

[PhysOrg]

Previous Article: Researchers Capture A Zebrafish's Thought Process On Video

Next Article: As The Earth Warms, The Lure Of The Arctic's Natural Resources Grows

10 Comments

Link to this comment

redeamed

01/31/13 at 8:36 pm

awesome.

Link to this comment

Bagpipes100

01/31/13 at 8:39 pm

Tell us, what did enzymes look like when life first evolved? Oh wait, you didnt observe that.

Ok ill settle for whatbit looked like in you sucessful experiments on abiogenesis.....oh wait that hasnt happened either.

Ok, so maybe a fesible model.....oh wait....

Link to this comment

Mukuro Holmes

01/31/13 at 9:55 pm

Bagpipes100...please don't. This should become the most commented article on PopSci for reasons other than hosting a flame war.
As for the article itself:
I don't know if being able to "control" evolution is a good thing or a bad thing. Knowing us humans, this can potentially result in the release of at least one bioweapon.

Link to this comment

Robot

02/01/13 at 8:37 am

The fact that life exist on Earth is so devine!

Link to this comment

Porphy

02/01/13 at 8:42 am

@ Mukuro - Most people associate what will become of the future with what they feel "others" will do with the future. In most situations if the person being asked will bypass years of positive change (and it has been getting better for humanity) and focus on the alarming highlights of yester-year.

However, when asked what they would do, personally, to fix the world...almost to a person everyone will have an answer. So, we know how to fix the world but we have no faith in humanity to do it...though we have been "doing it" for centuries now.

@ Bagpipes100 - The burden of proof is not on scientists. They don't care as passionately as you to disprove what they have already tested out. Here are pioneers saying, "This is a possible way life began, and all experiments we've attempted have pointed towards that fact."

If that is worth arguing over, perhaps you need to assess why you are so passionate about disproving it.

There are feasible models for abiogenesis, as well as documented experiments showing how simple RNA precursors could have formed... This study though, isn't about that and your drive to make it so proves to be questionable.

Link to this comment

Robot

02/01/13 at 8:54 am

Once it is 100% proven, confirmed and repeated we can make life in a dish, I predict humans will be sending probes off to planets and moons to colonize\transform these cosmic things.

I do not believe humanity is NOT wise enough to do this correctly, but it will be done anyway for the greed to create and make more of what humanity never satisfied desire.

Link to this comment

Robot

02/01/13 at 8:57 am

Ooops, two negative makes a postive.

I mean to say, " I do not believe humanity is wise enough..."

Link to this comment

techimpi

02/01/13 at 10:37 am

For those of you not getting it, this isn't an experiment about evolution or proving it. This is research on producing enzyme through techniques we haven't tried before.
Here, the scientists used evolution principles as a tool. Evolution is, there is no need to believe in it or not. It isn't a personification or a deity. What matters in this article is that scientists can do new things with new tools. I plan on reading the article and seeing if there is anything I can apply to my own work.

Link to this comment

Bagpipes100

02/01/13 at 11:58 am

@Porphy

"what they have already tested out. "

You're right, they have tested them out. They have all failed miserably.

Why do you keep believing the myths?

"There are feasible models for abiogenesis"
Really? How come none of them have empirically worked out?

"If that is worth arguing over, perhaps you need to assess why you are so passionate about disproving it."

Of course it is worth arguing over! We eventually got people to stop trying to turn lead into gold. We should do the same for the notion of abiogenesis.

If "scientist" keep wanting to pretend abiogenisis occurred, then the burden of proof is on them. We shouldn't let them continue to spin fairly tails about it and direct the direction research goes in, direct all the grant $$ with out any empirical proof.

Link to this comment

AnonymousAce920

02/01/13 at 5:05 pm

@Bagpipes100

Abiogenesis is not mentioned in this article and I'm not quite sure you are familiar with the definition so I will leave this for you.
abiogenesis: a hypothetical organic phenomenon by which living organisms are created from nonliving matter.

These scientists could be Raelians for all it matters and it would have absolutely nothing to do with this experiment.

Why is it that when scientists take baby steps to find the asnwers to life's largest questions; hasty, arrogant, and ignorant people like you have to start talking about abiogenesis?