Chemical and Biological Physics Guest seminar

Date:
29
Tuesday
November
2022
Lecture / Seminar
Time: 14:00
Title: Playing the evolution game with DNA oligomers
Location: Stone Administration Building
Lecturer: Prof Tommaso Bellini
Organizer: Department of Chemical and Biological Physics
Contact: nir.gov@weizmann.ac.il
Details: Universita degli Studi di Milano
Abstract: We introduce a variant of SELEX in-vitro selection to study the evolution of a p ... Read more We introduce a variant of SELEX in-vitro selection to study the evolution of a population of oligonucleotides starting from a seed of random-sequence DNA 50mers (our evolving individuals) and introducing selectivity by an affinity capture gel formed by beads carrying DNA 20mers of fixed sequence that act as targets (our resources). We PCR amplify the captured strands and proceed to the next generation. Because of the simplicity of the process, we could investigate what plays the role of “fitness" in this synthetic evolution process. We find that, across generations, evolution is first driven by the need of binding to the capture gel, while, on a later stages it appear dominated by the emerging of motifs related to inter-individual interactions.
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