Emergence of protocellular growth laws

Area of Science:

• Origin of Life Research
• Systems Chemistry
• Theoretical Biology

Background:

• Template-directed replication typically follows a parabolic growth law due to product inhibition.
• Minimal protocell models are crucial for understanding early life and self-replication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the kinetics of template-directed replication coupled with lipid aggregate production in a minimal protocell model.
• To analytically demonstrate how autocatalytic feedback influences replication kinetics and protocell growth.

Main Methods:

• Analytical modeling of a minimal protocell system.
• Investigating the interplay between template replication and container catalysis.
• Analyzing the resulting growth kinetics and stoichiometric control.

Main Results:

• Autocatalytic template-container feedback drives balanced exponential replication kinetics.
• Both genes and containers exhibit exponential growth with the same exponent, overriding parabolic gene replication limitations.
• Cell population generation time is determined by internal kinetics, not solely by the growth law.

Conclusions:

• The proposed model provides a framework for understanding balanced exponential growth in protocells.
• This finding simplifies requirements for stoichiometric control in minimal cell assembly.
• The results encourage experimental efforts in creating self-replicating minimal artificial cells.