We will use organelles, and other evolvable systems, to perform evolutionary experiments that were previously inaccessible. For cytoplasmic translational systems, disabling perturbations to…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a $1,084,200.00 grant to the Regents of the University of Minnesota, doing business as the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, to conduct research on evolving cytoplasmic translational systems. The research aims to investigate the flexibility of life in making key evolutionary transitions and understand the constraints of the current translation system. The grant does not have a set-aside designation and was awarded on July 27, 2017, with a completion date of July 26, 2020. The research is expected to open new avenues for investigating the origins and evolution of translation, a central process in living systems.

We will use organelles, and other evolvable systems, to perform evolutionary experiments that were previously inaccessible. For cytoplasmic translational systems, disabling perturbations to translational system are universally lethal. Discovering if there is an alternate space of translation systems defines how flexible life is in making a key evolutionary transition, and informs US about how rare or constrained the current translation system is. We propose to correlate the ribosomal translation system, in vitro and in vivo, to a series of ancestral states and to a series of degraded states. We will develop new methods to allow US to apply selection to the translation system, which has previously been recalcitrant to directed evolution and ancestral reconstruction due to a focus on cytosolic translation. Our novel in vivo system is based on organelles. Chloroplasts and mitochondria are effectively proto-cells. They are manipulable experimental proto-cells that will allow US to introduce variation to the translation system that would be lethal and inaccessible to experimental evolution in any cytoplasmic system. We will use a combination of molecular engineering, experimental evolution, genomics, in vitro analysis, modeling, and phylogenetic analysis. The anticipated significance is substantial, as IT will open up new avenues for investigating the origins and evolution of translation, one of the central processes in living systems.