title: Generic Darwinian selection in catalytic protocell assemblies.
abstract: To satisfy the minimal requirements for life, an information carrying molecular structure must be able to convert resources into building blocks and also be able to adapt to or modify its environment to enhance its own proliferation. Furthermore, new copies of itself must have variable fitness such that evolution is possible. In practical terms, a minimal protocell should be characterized by a strong coupling between its metabolism and genetic subsystem, which is made possible by the container. There is still no general agreement on how such a complex system might have been naturally selected for in a prebiotic environment. However, the historical details are not important for our investigations as they are related to assembling and evolution of protocells in the laboratory. Here, we study three different minimal protocell models of increasing complexity, all of them incorporating the coupling between a 'genetic template', a container and, eventually, a toy metabolism. We show that for any local growth law associated with template self-replication, the overall temporal evolution of all protocell's components follows an exponential growth (efficient or uninhibited autocatalysis). Thus, such a system attains exponential growth through coordinated catalytic growth of its component subsystems, independent of the replication efficiency of the involved subsystems. As exponential growth implies the survival of the fittest in a competitive environment, these results suggest that protocell assemblies could be efficient vehicles in terms of evolving through Darwinian selection.
authors.affiliation: ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 80, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. andreea.munteanu@upf.edu
authors.forename: Andreea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Munteanu
authors.forename: Camille Stephan-Otto
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Attolini
authors.forename: Steen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ziock
authors.forename: Ricard V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Solé
mesh_terms: D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena; D008954:Models, Biological; D012641:Selection, Genetic