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Why can the evolution of a synthetic organism be difficult to predict outside a laboratory?
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synthetic biology
A scanning electron micrograph of cells of Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0āa synthetic bacterium.
Predicting the evolution of a synthetic organism outside a laboratory is challenging because, while these organisms may be stable in controlled settings, they face unpredictable environmental pressures and interactions once released.1
The difficulty arises from several factors:
- Emergent Properties: When de novo genesāthose with no natural lineageāenter the environment, they may interact with other organisms or environmental factors in unexpected ways, leading to emergent properties that are difficult to forecast.1
- Environmental Pressures: After multiple generations, exposure to natural selection and external stressors can drive evolutionary changes that deviate from the organism's original design.1
- Genetic Dynamics: In smaller or isolated populations, mechanisms such as genetic drift can cause traits to be lost or become widespread purely by chance, independent of their survival value.2
Because synthetic organisms are capable of reproducing and evolving, scientists face the complex task of designing them to remain stable or preventing them from acquiring new, unintended traits when they interact with the broader environment.1