Publications - Published papers
Please find below publications of our group. Currently, we list 565 papers. Some of the publications are in collaboration with the group of Sonja Prohaska and are also listed in the publication list for her individual group. Access to published papers (
) is restricted to our local network and chosen collaborators.
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) is restricted to our local network and chosen collaborators.
If you have problems accessing electronic information, please let us know:©NOTICE: All papers are copyrighted by the authors; If you would like to use all or a portion of any paper, please contact the author.
In silico Evolution of Early Metabolism
Alexander Ullrich, Christoph Flamm, Markus Rohrschneider and Peter F. Stadler
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PREPRINT 10-016: [ PDF ]
Status: Submitted
In: Alife XII, Springer-Verlag, 2010. Submitted
Abstract
We developed a simulation tool for investigating the evolution
of early metabolism, allowing us to speculate on the formation
ofmetabolic pathways fromcatalyzed chemical reactions
and development of characteristic properties. Our model
consists of a protocellular entity with a simple RNA-based
genetic system and an evolving metabolism of ribozymecatalyzed
enzymes that manipulate a rich underlying chemistry.
Ensuring an almost open-ended and fairly realistic simulation
is crucial for understanding the first steps in metabolic
evolution. We show here, how our simulation tool can be
helpful in arguing for or against hypotheses on the evolution
of metabolic pathways. We demonstrate that seemingly mutually
exclusive hypotheses may well be compatible when we
take into account that different processes dominate different
phases in the evolution of a metabolic system. Our results
suggest that forward evolution shapes metabolic network in
the very early steps of evolution. In later and more complex
stages, enzyme recruitment supersedes forward evolution,
keeping a core set of pathways from the early phase.