近日，法国巴黎文理研究大学Olivier Rivoire团队研究了最小物理系统中的进化特征：多样性、选择、生长、遗传和适应。相关论文于2025年7月30日发表在《美国科学院院刊》杂志上。

研究组提出了一个简单的物理模型，概括了生物进化的几个特征，而仅基于热驱动的附着和基本构建块的分离。通过其动力学，该模型在独立轨迹内部和之间采样了大量不同的非平衡稳态。这些动力学表现出一定的方向性，其数量随时间的增加、特定状态的选择和优先空间扩展而增加，并以连续状态之间相关成分的形式遗传，以及环境依赖的适应。

该模型挑战了关于类生命属性需求的常见概念：它不涉及代谢、复制和划分的单独机制；存储和传输数字信息，无需模板复制或大分子组装；无复制和有复制的展品选择；在没有自催化作用的情况下生长。由于该模型基于一般的物理原理，因此它适用于各种实验实现。

附：英文原文

Title: Evolutionary features in a minimal physical system: Diversity, selection, growth, inheritance, and adaptation

Author: Bunin, Guy, Rivoire, Olivier

Issue&Volume: 2025-7-30

Abstract: We present a simple physical model that recapitulates several features of biological evolution, while being based only on thermally driven attachment and detachment of elementary building blocks. Through its dynamics, this model samples a large and diverse array of nonequilibrium steady states, both within and between independent trajectories. These dynamics exhibit directionality with a quantity that increases in time, selection, and preferential spatial expansion of particular states, as well as inheritance in the form of correlated compositions between successive states, and environment-dependent adaptation. The model challenges common conceptions regarding the requirements for life-like properties: It does not involve separate mechanisms for metabolism, replication, and compartmentalization; stores and transmits digital information without template replication or assembly of large molecules; exhibits selection both without and with reproduction; and undergoes growth without autocatalysis. As the model is based on generic physical principles, it is amenable to various experimental implementations.

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2425753122

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2425753122