Artificial self-replication and exponential growth holds the promise of gaining a better understanding of fundamental processes in nature but also of evolving new materials and devices with useful properties. A system of DNA origami dimers has been shown to exhibit exponential growth and selection. Here we introduce mutation and growth advantages to study the possibility of Darwinian-like evolution. We seed and grow one dimer species, AB, from A and B monomers that doubles in each cycle. A similar species from C and D monomers can replicate at a controlled growth rate of two or four per cycle but is unseeded. Introducing a small mutation rate so that AB parents infrequently template CD offspring we show experimentally that the CD species can take over the system in approximately six generations in an advantageous environment. This demonstration opens the door to the use of evolution in materials design.

人工自我复制和指数增长有望更好地了解自然界的基本过程，同时也有望发展出具有有用特性的新材料和设备。DNA 折纸二聚体系统已显示出指数增长和选择。在这里，我们引入突变和生长优势来研究类似达尔文进化的可能性。我们从在每个循环中加倍的 A 和 B 单体中播种和培育出一种二聚体 AB。来自 C 和 D 单体的类似物种可以以每个周期 2 或 4 个受控生长速率复制，但未播种。引入一个小的突变率，以便 AB 父母不经常模板 CD 后代，我们通过实验表明，CD 物种可以在有利的环境中在大约六代内接管系统。