Synchronization Phenomena in Surface-Reaction Models of Protocells

A class of generic models of protocells is introduced, which are inspired by the “Los Alamos bug” is but which, due to their abstraction level, can be applied to a wider set of detailed protocell hypotheses. These models describe the coupled growth of the lipid container and of the self-replicating molecules. A technique to analyze the dynamics of populations of such protocells is described, which couples a continuous-time formalism for the growth between two successive cell divisions, and a discrete map which relates the quantity of self-replicating molecules in successive generations. This technique allows one to derive several properties in an analytical way. It is shown that, under fairly general assumptions, the two growth rates synchronize, so that the lipid container doubles its size when the quantity of self-replicating molecules has also doubled – thus giving rise to exponential growth of the population of protocells. Such synchronization had been postulated a priori in...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: ALIFE
• Authors: Roberto Serra, Timoteo Carletti, Irene Poli
• Keywords: ALIFE 2007, Growth Rate, Lipid Container, Modeling And Simulation, Self-replicating Molecules