Living robots made from frog cells can replicate themselves in a dish

Swarms of tiny "xenobots" tin self-replicate successful the laboratory by pushing escaped cells unneurotic – the archetypal clip this signifier of reproduction has been seen successful multicellular organisms

Life 29 November 2021

By Carissa Wong

Swarms of tiny surviving robots tin self-replicate successful a crockery by pushing escaped cells together. The xenobots – made from frog cells – are the archetypal multicellular organisms recovered to reproduce successful this way.

Xenobots were archetypal created past year, utilizing cells taken from the embryo of the frog taxon Xenopus laevis. Under the close laboratory conditions, the cells formed tiny structures that could self-assemble, determination successful groups and sense their environment.

Now, the researchers down the enactment person recovered that xenobots tin besides self-replicate. Josh Bongard astatine the University of Vermont and Michael Levin astatine Tufts University successful Massachusetts and their colleagues began by extracting rapidly dividing stem cells that are destined to go tegument cells from frog embryos.

A C-shaped xenobot pushes on escaped cells to make a caller clump of cells

Douglas Blackiston

When the cells are brought unneurotic successful clumps, they signifier spheres of astir 3000 cells wrong 5 days. Each clump is astir fractional a millimetre wide and covered successful minuscule hair-like structures. These enactment similar flexible oars, propelling the xenobots guardant successful corkscrew paths, says Bongard.

The squad noticed that idiosyncratic clumps of cells appeared to enactment unneurotic successful a swarm, pushing different escaped cells successful the crockery together. The resulting piles of cells gradually formed caller xenobots.

Read more: Ultra-tiny nanomachines are redefining however we deliberation of robots

Further experiments revealed that groups of 12 xenobots placed successful a crockery of astir 60,000 azygous cells look to enactment unneurotic to signifier either 1 oregon 2 caller generations.

“One [xenobot] genitor tin statesman a heap and then, by chance, a 2nd genitor tin propulsion much cells into that pile, and truthful on, generating the child,” says Bongard.

Each circular of replication creates somewhat smaller xenobot offspring, connected average. Eventually, offspring that comprise less than 50 cells suffer their quality to aquatics and reproduce.

In an effort to make further generations of xenobots, the squad turned to artificial intelligence. Using an algorithm modelled connected evolution, the squad predicted which starting shapes of cells mightiness make the astir offspring.

The simulation predicted that C-shaped clusters would springiness emergence to the astir generations. When the squad chopped spherical xenobots into C-shapes, the altered xenobots produced up to 4 generations, treble that generated by spherical xenobot parents.

“By manipulating the signifier of the parents, you tin marque a amended shovel to determination much cells,” says Bongard.

It is the archetypal clip multicellular organisms person been recovered to self-replicate successful a mode that doesn’t impact maturation connected the organism’s ain body. “This enactment shows determination was a antecedently chartless mode that beingness could self-replicate,” says Bongard.

Some of the squad members anticipation to usage the xenobots to analyse however the archetypal organisms connected Earth whitethorn person reproduced.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112672118

More connected these topics:

• reproduction
• life