Abstract
RNA viruses can be an adequate bridge between life and artificial life. Under experimental conditions the parameters that in last instance are responsible for the evolution of replicons resembling primitive life forms can be easily studied. One year of a RNA virus evolving may be equivalent to one million years of an evolving DNA-based entity. High mutation rates as well as very short life cycles permit the capability of observing evolutionary effects in the lifetime of a human observer. Another important feature of RNA viruses, functionally related to its mutation rate, is the genome length, which ranges between 3 and 30 Kb, probably the shortest lengths with the highest estimated mutation rates that do not undergo error catastrophe when replicating. The evolutionary biology, that is to say the evolution of structural and functional properties, of RNA viruses can be probably simulated better than other non-RNA based life entities. The hypotheses underlying artificial life programmes could also be tested by experimental evolution of RNA viruses. Simplicity and rapid evolvability of RNA viruses are the basis for our proposal.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Morse, S.S. (ed.): The Evolutionary Biology of Viruses. Raven Press, New York (1994)
Mills, D.R., Peterson, R.L., Spiegelman, S.: An extracellular darwinian experiment with a self-duplicating nucleic acid molecule. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 58 (1967) 217–224.
Domingo, E., Sabo, D., Taniguchi, T., Weissmann, C.: Nucleotide sequence heterogeneity of an RNA phage population. Cell 13 (1978) 735–744
Biebricher, C.K.: Darwinian selection of self-replicating RNA molecules. Evol. Biol. 16 (1983) 1–52
Eigen, M., Briebicher, C.: Sequence space and quasispecies distribution. pp. 211–245. Edit. by E. Domingo, J. Holland, P. Ahlquist in RNA Genetics (Vol. 3). CRC Press, Boca Ratón, California (1988)
Schuster, P.: Complex optimization in an artificial RNA world. Edit. by C.G. Langton, C. Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, S. Rasmussen in Artitifical Life II, pp. 277–291. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA (1992)
Hubby, J.L., Lewontin, R.C.: A molecular approach to the study of genic heterozigosity in natural populations. I. The number of alleles at different loci in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Genetics 54 (1966) 577–594
Kimura, M.: The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1983)
Dobzhansky, T.: Genetics of the Evolutionary Process. Columbia University Press, New York (1970)
Golding, B.: Non-Neutral Evolution. Chapman and Hall, New York (1994)
Li, W.H., Graur, D.: Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA (1991)
Domingo, E., Holland, J.: Mutation rates and rapid evolution of RNA viruses. pp. 161–184. Edit. by S.S. Morse in The Evolutionary Biology of Viruses. Raven Press, New York (1994)
Eigen, M., Schuster, P.: The Hypercycle. A Principle of Natural Self-organization. Springer-Verlag, Berlin (1979)
Drake, J.: Rates of spontaneous mutation among RNA viruses. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90 (1993) 4171–4175
Temin, H.: Is HIV unique or merely different) J. AIDS 2 (1989) 1–9
Martínez, M.A., Carrillo, C., González-Candelas, F., Moya, A., Domingo, E., Sobrino, F.: Fitness alteration of foot-and-mouth disease virus mutants: measurement of adaptability of viral sequences. J. Virol. 65 (1991) 3954–3957
Fitch, W., Leiter, J.M.E., Li, X., Palese, P.: Positive darwinian evolution in human influenza A viruses. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88 (1991) 4270–4274
Moya, A., Rodriguez-Cerezo, E., García-Arenal, F.: Genetic structure of natural populations of the plant RNA virus tobacco mild green mosaic virus. Mol. Biol. Evol. 10 (1993) 449–456
Muller, H.J.: The relation of recombination to mutational advance. Mutat. Res. 1 (1964) 2–9
Chao, L.: Fitness of RNA virus decreased by Muller's ratchet. Nature 348 (1990) 454–455
Duarte, E., Clarke, D., Moya, A., Domingo, E., Holland, J.: Rapid fitness losses in mammalian RNA virus clones due to Muller's ratchet. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89 (1992) 6015–6019
Gause, G.F.: The Struggle for Existence. Dover, New York (1971)
Clarke, D., Duarte, E., Elena, S., Moya, A., Domingo, E., Holland, J.: The red queen reigns in the kingdom of RNA viruses. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91 (1994) 4821–4824
Van Valen, L.: A new evolutionary law. Evol. Theory 1 (1973) 1–30
Bell, G.: Sex and Death in Protozoa: The History of an Obsession. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1988)
Clarke, D., Duarte, E., Moya, A., Elena, S.F., Domingo, E., Holland, J.: Genetic bottleneck and population passages cause profound fitness differences in RNA viruses. J. Virol. 67 (1993) 222–228
Duarte, E., Clarke, D., Moya, A., Elena, S.F., Domingo, E., Holland, J.: Many-trillionfold amplifications of single RNA virus particles fails to overcome the Muller's ratchet effect. J. Virol. 67 (1993) 3620–3623
Duarte, E., Novella, I., Ledesma, S., Clarke, D., Moya, A., Elena, S.F., Domingo, E., Holland, J.: Subclonal components of consensus fitness in an RNA virus clone. J. Virol. 68 (1994) 4295–4301
Elena, S., González-Candelas, F., Novella, I., Duarte, I., Clarke, D., Domingo, E., Holland, J., Moya, A.: Evolution of fitness in experimental populations of vesicular stomatitis virus. Submitted
Emmeche, C.: The Garden in the Machine. Princeton University Press, NJ (1994)
Eigen, M.: Steps Towards Life. A Perspective on Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1992)
Langton, C.G.: Introduction. Edit. by C.G. Langton, C. Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, S. Rasmussen in Artificial Life II, pp. 3–23. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA (1992)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Moya, A., Domingo, E., Holland, J.J. (1995). RNA viruses: a bridge between life and artificial life. In: Morán, F., Moreno, A., Merelo, J.J., Chacón, P. (eds) Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 929. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-59496-5_297
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-59496-5_297
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-59496-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49286-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive