An ecological framework for the analysis of prebiotic chemical reaction networks.

ABSTRACT: It is becoming widely accepted that very early in life's origin, even before the emergence of genetic encoding, reaction networks of diverse small chemicals might have manifested key properties of life, namely self-propagation and adaptive evolution. To explore this possibility, we formalize the dynamics of chemical reaction networks within the framework of chemical ecosystem ecology. To capture the idea that life-like chemical systems are maintained out of equilibrium by fluxes of energy-rich food chemicals, we model chemical ecosystems in well-mixed compartments that are subject to constant dilution by a solution with a fixed concentration of input chemicals. Modelling all chemical reactions as fully reversible, we show that seeding an autocatalytic cycle with tiny amounts of one or more

SUBMITTER: Peng Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8841130 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature