Modello eco-evolutivo per l’evoluzione sintetica del DNA basata sull’affinità

Among the fundamental processes governing Nature, evolution is one of the most thoroughly described but less formalized. The grand goal of describing the evolution of ecosystems via clean universal laws is made difficult by the inherent complexity of biological systems and available experimental models, which involve large numbers of potentially relevant variables of difficult quantification. Recently, in collaboration with prof. T. Bellini of University of Milan, we have developed a variant of SELEX in vitro selection to study the evolution of a population of ∼1015 single-strand DNA oligonucleotide ‘individuals’. In this thesis the students will explore eco-evolutionary model for species population dynamics to describe the outcome of affinity-based DNA synthetic evolution experiments. In particular the modelling framework will integrate consumer resources (CR) with generalized Lotka-Volterra (GLV) models. The CR component of the model will capture how these DNA species compete for the oligomers, reflecting the direct dependency of fitness on resource availability and uptake. Additionally, the GLV framework will allow us to model interactions among the DNA strains themselves, capturing both parasitic interactions and cross-feeding phenomena that are critical to understanding emergent ecological behaviors.