Resurrecting a 500 million year old gene
| July 11, 2012 | Posted by News under Evolution, News |
From “Giving Ancient Life Another Chance to Evolve: Scientists Place 500-Million-Year-Old Gene in Modern Organism”(ScienceDaily, July 11, 2012), we learn,
Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action.
“This is as close as we can get to rewinding and replaying the molecular tape of life,” said scientist Betül Kaçar, a NASA astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution. “The ability to observe an ancient gene in a modern organism as it evolves within a modern cell allows us to see whether the evolutionary trajectory once taken will repeat itself or whether a life will adapt following a different path.”
What happened?
“The altered organism wasn’t as healthy or fit as its modern-day version, at least initially,” said Gaucher, “and this created a perfect scenario that would allow the altered organism to adapt and become more fit as it accumulated mutations with each passing day.”
The growth rate eventually increased and, after the first 500 generations, the scientists sequenced the genomes of all eight lineages to determine how the bacteria adapted. Not only did the fitness levels increase to nearly modern-day levels, but also some of the altered lineages actually became healthier than their modern counterpart.
When the researchers looked closer, they noticed that every EF-Tu gene did not accumulate mutations. Instead, the modern proteins that interact with the ancient EF-Tu inside of the bacteria had mutated and these mutations were responsible for the rapid adaptation that increased the bacteria’s fitness. In short, the ancient gene has not yet mutated to become more similar to its modern form, but rather, the bacteria found a new evolutionary trajectory to adapt.
In other words, it’s not clear that anything dramatic happened, but some people have been following bacteria for tens of thousands of generations, and that might be a next step here.
Surely they are on the right track in this respect: To develop possible scenarios for origin of life or the cell, researchers must attempt to create them in the lab. Arguing about whether montmorillonite or silica actually played a role in the origin of life way back when is arguing over subjects the truth of which may never be possible to know.
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500myo genetic material? …hmmmm…
Modern day bacteria which have had mutations to become resistant to antibiotics are well known for their inability to pass what is termed a ‘fitness test’ against a non-mutated strain of bacteria. i.e. The mutated strain is less robust for survival than the the non-mutated strain. This fact is one fact that has argued very strongly against Darwinian evolution since no one can seem to find any examples of complexity increasing above what is already present in the bacteria. Which is what makes this following finding very interesting. Modern day bacteria which were implanted with a ancient 500 million year old ‘resurrected’ gene are more found to be more fit than their modern day counterparts!
Now the burning question that Darwinists will never ask is, of course, why are the modern genes adjusting to the information that the ancient 500 million year old gene had provided to the bacteria, to increase the fitness of the bacteria, instead of the other way around of the older gene changing to ‘catch up’ to the more evolved modern strain??? This evidence clearly is evidence of Genetic Entropy (deterioration) of the genes of modern bacteria, not evolution, since the modern strains of bacteria only ‘regained’ fitness over and above what they started out as once ‘non-deteriorated’ ancient genetic information was added to the genome of the bacteria!
Related notes on ancient bacteria:
Evolutionists were so disbelieving at this stunning lack of change, far less change than was expected from the neo-Darwinian view, that they insisted the stunning similarity was due to modern contamination in Vreeland’s experiment. Yet the following study laid that objection to rest by verifying that Dr. Vreeland’s methodology for extracting ancient DNA was solid and was not introducing contamination because the DNA sequences this time around were completely unique:
These following studies, by Dr. Cano on ancient bacteria, preceded Dr. Vreeland’s work:
Dr. Cano’s work on ancient bacteria came in for intense scrutiny since it did not conform to Darwinian predictions, and since people found it hard to believe you could revive something that was millions of years old. Yet Dr. Cano has been vindicated:
In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the ‘Fitness Test’ I had asked him about:
Thus, the most solid evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level of bacteria. In fact, according to the fitness test of Dr. Cano, the change witnessed in bacteria conforms to the exact opposite, Genetic Entropy; a loss of functional information/complexity, since fewer substrates and fatty acids are utilized by the modern strains. Considering the intricate level of protein machinery it takes to utilize individual molecules within a substrate, we are talking an impressive loss of protein complexity, and thus loss of functional information, from the ancient amber sealed bacteria. This following study concurs the pattern of genetic entropy:
Here is a video of the ‘Fitness Test’ that evolutionary processes have NEVER passed as for a demonstration of the generation of functional complexity/information above what was already present in a parent species bacteria:
See also:
It is also extremely interesting to note, the principle of Genetic Entropy, a principle which stands in direct opposition of the primary claim of neo-Darwinian evolution, lends itself quite well to mathematical analysis by computer simulation:
Whereas, neo-Darwinian evolution has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation; in any supposed ‘Evolutionary Algorithm’ (much less in real time in life):