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Updated: Aug 26, 2026

Construction of Out-of-Equilibrium Metabolic Networks in Nano- and Micrometer-Sized Vesicles
Published on: April 12, 2024
Proto-organism kinetics: evolutionary dynamics of lipid aggregates with genes and metabolism
Steen J Rasmussen1, Liaohai Chen, Bärbel M R Stadler
1EES-6 MS T003 & T-CNLS MS B258, Los Alamos Natl. Lab., Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. steen@lanl.gov
Abstract:
A synthetic proto-organism could be self-assembled by integrating a lipid proto-container with a proto-metabolic subsystem and a proto-genetic subsystem. This three-component system can use energy and nutrients by means of either redox or photo-chemical reactions, evolve its protogenome by means of template directed replication, and ultimately die. The evolutionary dynamics of the proto-organism depends crucially on the chemical kinetics of its sub-systems and on their interplay. In this work the template replication kinetics is investigated and it is found that the product inhibition inherent in the ligation-like replication process allows for coexistence of unrelated self-replicating proto-genes in the lipid surface layer. The combined catalytic effects from the proto-genes on the metabolic production rates determine the fate of the strain protocell.
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