Proto-organism kinetics: evolutionary dynamics of lipid aggregates with genes and metabolism.
A synthetic proto-organism could be self-assembled by integrating a lipid proto-container with a proto-metabolic subsystem and a proto-genetic subsystem. This three-component system can use energy and nutrients by means of either redox or photo-chemical reactions, evolve its protogenome by means of template directed replication, and ultimately die. The evolutionary dynamics of the proto-organism depends crucially on the chemical kinetics of its sub-systems and on their interplay. In this work the template replication kinetics is investigated and it is found that the product inhibition inherent in the ligation-like replication process allows for coexistence of unrelated self-replicating proto-genes in the lipid surface layer. The combined catalytic effects from the proto-genes on the metabolic production rates determine the fate of the strain protocell.
EES-6 MS T003 & T-CNLS MS B258, Los Alamos Natl. Lab., Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. steen@lanl.gov
Steen J
SJ
Rasmussen
Liaohai
L
Chen
Bärbel M R
BM
Stadler
Peter F
PF
Stadler
D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005796:Genes; D007700:Kinetics; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*
D008055:Lipids