Laboratory evolution is greatly accelerated compared with natural evolution, but it usually requires substantial manipulation by the experimenter. Researchers Brian M. Paegel and Gerald F. Joyce have developed a system that relies on computer control and microfluidic chip technology to automate the directed evolution of functional molecules in much the same way that one would execute a computer program using a population of billions of RNA enzymes with RNA-joining activity, which were challenged to react in the presence of progressively lower concentrations of substrate.
The steps were repeated automatically for 500 iterations of 10-fold exponential growth followed by 10-fold dilution. The researchers observed evolution in real time as the population adapted to the imposed selection constraints and achieved progressively faster growth rates over time.
The original research paper is available on PLOS Biology, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal.
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