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Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets
Systems chemistry deals with the design and study of complex chemical systems. However, such systems are often difficult to investigate experimentally. We provide an example of how theoretical and simulation-based studies can provide useful insights into the properties and dynamics of complex chemic...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6462942/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30823659 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life9010023 |
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author | Hordijk, Wim Steel, Mike Kauffman, Stuart A. |
author_facet | Hordijk, Wim Steel, Mike Kauffman, Stuart A. |
author_sort | Hordijk, Wim |
collection | PubMed |
description | Systems chemistry deals with the design and study of complex chemical systems. However, such systems are often difficult to investigate experimentally. We provide an example of how theoretical and simulation-based studies can provide useful insights into the properties and dynamics of complex chemical systems, in particular of autocatalytic sets. We investigate the issue of the required molecular diversity for autocatalytic sets to exist in random polymer libraries. Given a fixed probability that an arbitrary polymer catalyzes the formation of other polymers, we calculate this required molecular diversity theoretically for two particular models of chemical reaction systems, and then verify these calculations by computer simulations. We also argue that these results could be relevant to an origin of life scenario proposed recently by Damer and Deamer. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6462942 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64629422019-04-22 Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets Hordijk, Wim Steel, Mike Kauffman, Stuart A. Life (Basel) Article Systems chemistry deals with the design and study of complex chemical systems. However, such systems are often difficult to investigate experimentally. We provide an example of how theoretical and simulation-based studies can provide useful insights into the properties and dynamics of complex chemical systems, in particular of autocatalytic sets. We investigate the issue of the required molecular diversity for autocatalytic sets to exist in random polymer libraries. Given a fixed probability that an arbitrary polymer catalyzes the formation of other polymers, we calculate this required molecular diversity theoretically for two particular models of chemical reaction systems, and then verify these calculations by computer simulations. We also argue that these results could be relevant to an origin of life scenario proposed recently by Damer and Deamer. MDPI 2019-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6462942/ /pubmed/30823659 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life9010023 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Hordijk, Wim Steel, Mike Kauffman, Stuart A. Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title | Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title_full | Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title_fullStr | Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title_full_unstemmed | Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title_short | Molecular Diversity Required for the Formation of Autocatalytic Sets |
title_sort | molecular diversity required for the formation of autocatalytic sets |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6462942/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30823659 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life9010023 |
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