NLM IRP Seminar Schedule
UPCOMING SEMINARS
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April 23, 2024 OPEN
TBD -
April 25, 2024 Ermin Hodzic
Condition-Aware Cell Type Deconvolution of Bulk Tissues -
April 30, 2024 Wenya Rowe
The conformal central charge of the spin-1/2 XX model derived from long-chain asymptotics -
May 2, 2024 OPEN
TBD -
May 7, 2024 OPEN
TBD
RECENT SEMINARS
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April 23, 2024 OPEN
TBD -
April 16, 2024 Jaya Srivastava
Regulatory plasticity of the human genome -
April 11, 2024 Sergey Shmakov
Comprehensive survey of the TnpB RNA-guided nucleases -
April 2, 2024 Yifan Yang
Fairness and Bias in Biomedical AI -
March 28, 2024 Joseph Schafer
Evolutionary selection of proteins with two folds
Scheduled Seminars on April 18, 2023
Contact NLM_IRP_Seminar_Scheduling@mail.nih.gov with questions about this seminar.
Abstract:
There are two fundamentally distinct but inextricably linked types of biological evolutionary units, reproducers and replicators. Reproducers are cells and organelles that reproduce via various forms of division and maintain the physical continuity of compartments and their content. Replicators are genetic elements (GE), including genomes of cellular organisms and various autonomous elements, that both cooperate with reproducers and rely on the latter for replication. All known cells and organisms comprise a union between replicators and reproducers. We explore a model in which cells emerged via symbiosis between primordial ‘metabolic’ reproducers (protocells) which evolved, on short time scales, via a primitive form of selection and random drift, and mutualist replicators. Mathematical modeling identifies the conditions, under which GE-carrying protocells can outcompete GE-less ones, taking into account that, from the earliest stages of evolution, replicators split into mutualists and parasites. Analysis of the model shows that, for the GE-containing protocells to win the competition and to be fixed in evolution, it is essential that the birth-death process of the GE is coordinated with the rate of protocell division. At the early stages of evolution, random, high-variance cell division is advantageous compared to symmetrical division because the former provides for the emergence of protocells containing only mutualists, preventing takeover by parasites. These findings illuminate the likely order of key events on the evolutionary route from protocells to cells that involved the origin of genomes, symmetrical cell division and anti-parasite defense systems.