Figure 4: Evolutionary in vitro design of biopolymers. Properties or catalytic functions of biomolecules are optimized in iterative manner through selection cycles. Every cycle consists of three distinct phases: amplification, diversification, and selection. Amplification is achieved by one of the currently available polynucleotide replication assays. Diversification occurs through replication with artificially high error rates or random synthesis. Currently successful selection techniques apply one of two strategies: (i) selection from homogeneous mixtures using binding to solid phase target or reactive tags that allow to separate suitable molecules from the rest of the mixture and (ii) spatial separation of individual molecular genotypes and large scale screening.

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