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RNA viruses: a bridge between life and artificial life

  • 2. Origins of Life and Evolution
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Advances in Artificial Life (ECAL 1995)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 929))

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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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Genética and Servicio de Bioinformática, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Valencia “Estudio General”, c/ Dr. Moliner, 50, 46100, Burjassot, Valencia, Spain

    Andrés Moya

  2. Centra de Biología Molecular “Severo Ochoa”, CSIC-UAM, Madrid, Spain

    Esteban Domingo

  3. Department of Biology and Institute for Molecular Genetics, University of California, 92093, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

    John J. Holland

Authors
  1. Andrés Moya
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  2. Esteban Domingo
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  3. John J. Holland
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Editor information

Federico Morán Alvaro Moreno Juan Julián Merelo Pablo Chacón

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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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

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-59496-5_297

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-59496-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49286-3

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