title: Growth and division in a dynamic protocell model.
abstract: In this paper a new model of growing and dividing protocells is described, whose main features are (i) a lipid container that grows according to the composition of the molecular milieu (ii) a set of "genetic memory molecules" (GMMs) that undergo catalytic reactions in the internal aqueous phase and (iii) a set of stochastic kinetic equations for the GMMs. The mass exchange between the external environment and the internal phase is described by simulating a semipermeable membrane and a flow driven by the differences in chemical potentials, thereby avoiding to resort to sometimes misleading simplifications, e.g., that of a flow reactor. Under simple assumptions, it is shown that synchronization takes place between the rate of replication of the GMMs and that of the container, provided that the set of reactions hosts a so-called RAF (Reflexive Autocatalytic, Food-generated) set whose influence on synchronization is hereafter discussed. It is also shown that a slight modification of the basic model that takes into account a rate-limiting term, makes possible the growth of novelties, allowing in such a way suitable evolution: so the model represents an effective basis for understanding the main abstract properties of populations of protocells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Informatics and Mathematics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, v. Campi 213a, 41125 Modena, Italy. marco.villani@unimore.it.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Villani
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences (DAIS), University Ca' Foscari, Ca' Minich, S. Marco 2940, 30124 Venice, Italy. alessandro.filisetti@unive.it.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Filisetti
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication, University of Milan-Bicocca, Viale Sarca, 336, 20126 Milano, Italy. alex.graudenzi@unimib.it.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Graudenzi
authors.affiliation: SYSBIO-Centre for Systems Biology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 2, 20126 Milano, Italy. chiara.damiani@unimib.it.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Damiani
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Namur Center for Complex Systems-naXys, University of Namur, rue de Bruxelles 61, B-5000 Namur, Belgium. timoteo.carletti@unamur.be.
authors.forename: Timoteo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Carletti
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Informatics and Mathematics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, v. Campi 213a, 41125 Modena, Italy. roberto.serra@unimore.it.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Serra