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Title: Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information-coding polymers

Abstract

Self-replicating systems based on information-coding polymers are of crucial importance in biology. They also recently emerged as a paradigm in material design on nano- and micro-scales. We present a general theoretical and numerical analysis of the problem of spontaneous emergence of autocatalysis for heteropolymers capable of template-assisted ligation driven by cyclic changes in the environment. Our central result is the existence of the first order transition between the regime dominated by free monomers and that with a self-sustaining population of sufficiently long chains. We provide a simple, mathematically tractable model supported by numerical simulations, which predicts the distribution of chain lengths and the onset of autocatalysis in terms of the overall monomer concentration and two fundamental rate constants. Another key result of our study is the emergence of the kinetically limited optimal overlap length between a template and each of its two substrates. The template-assisted ligation allows for heritable transmission of the information encoded in chain sequences thus opening up the possibility of long-term memory and evolvability in such systems.

Authors:
 [1];  [2]
  1. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Univ. of Illinois, Champaign, IL (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1213392
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1228708
Report Number(s):
BNL-108290-2015-JA
Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9606; JCPSA6; KC0403020; TRN: US1500647
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0012704; PM-031
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Chemical Physics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 143; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9606
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; copolymers; polymerization; free energy; sequence analysis; number theory

Citation Formats

Tkachenko, Alexei V., and Maslov, Sergei. Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information-coding polymers. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1063/1.4922545.
Tkachenko, Alexei V., & Maslov, Sergei. Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information-coding polymers. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922545
Tkachenko, Alexei V., and Maslov, Sergei. 2015. "Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information-coding polymers". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922545. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1213392.
@article{osti_1213392,
title = {Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information-coding polymers},
author = {Tkachenko, Alexei V. and Maslov, Sergei},
abstractNote = {Self-replicating systems based on information-coding polymers are of crucial importance in biology. They also recently emerged as a paradigm in material design on nano- and micro-scales. We present a general theoretical and numerical analysis of the problem of spontaneous emergence of autocatalysis for heteropolymers capable of template-assisted ligation driven by cyclic changes in the environment. Our central result is the existence of the first order transition between the regime dominated by free monomers and that with a self-sustaining population of sufficiently long chains. We provide a simple, mathematically tractable model supported by numerical simulations, which predicts the distribution of chain lengths and the onset of autocatalysis in terms of the overall monomer concentration and two fundamental rate constants. Another key result of our study is the emergence of the kinetically limited optimal overlap length between a template and each of its two substrates. The template-assisted ligation allows for heritable transmission of the information encoded in chain sequences thus opening up the possibility of long-term memory and evolvability in such systems.},
doi = {10.1063/1.4922545},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1213392}, journal = {Journal of Chemical Physics},
issn = {0021-9606},
number = 4,
volume = 143,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jul 28 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Tue Jul 28 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

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Cited by: 22 works
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Limited Sequence Diversity Within a Population Supports Prebiotic RNA Reproduction
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Open flow non-enzymatic template catalysis and replication
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Reaction kinetics in open reactors and serial transfers between closed reactors
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Onset of natural selection in populations of autocatalytic heteropolymers
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Spontaneous emergence of catalytic cycles with colloidal spheres
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Selection of self-priming molecular replicators
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Limited Sequence Diversity Within a Population Supports Prebiotic RNA Reproduction
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Length and sequence relaxation of copolymers under recombination reactions
journal, September 2017