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Review
. 2016 Aug;12(8):20160269.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0269.

Whither life? Conjectures on the future evolution of biochemistry

Jodi L Brewster  1 , Thomas J Finn  1 , Miguel A Ramirez  1 , Wayne M Patrick  2
Affiliations
Review

Whither life? Conjectures on the future evolution of biochemistry

Jodi L Brewster et al. Biol Lett. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

Life has existed on the Earth for approximately four billion years. The sheer depth of evolutionary time, and the diversity of extant species, makes it tempting to assume that all the key biochemical innovations underpinning life have already happened. But we are only a little over halfway through the trajectory of life on our planet. In this Opinion piece, we argue: (i) that sufficient time remains for the evolution of new processes at the heart of metabolic biochemistry and (ii) that synthetic biology is providing predictive insights into the nature of these innovations. By way of example, we focus on engineered solutions to existing inefficiencies in energy generation, and on the complex, synthetic regulatory circuits that are currently being implemented.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas; carbon fixation; energy generation; genetic circuits; phenotypic novelty.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The complete evolutionary trajectory of life on the Earth, with the timeline (in Gyr) drawn to scale. Selected innovations from the past are shown and the yellow shading highlights the time remaining for future innovations to occur.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
A comparison of natural (oxidative) glycolysis and synthetic (non-oxidative) glycolysis. Abbreviations are defined in the text. Redrawn from [16].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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