Vesicular protocell life-cycle by mprDPD 

Replication of Metabolizing vesicles by mprDPD

In order to complete a physico-chemical description of an artificial cell life-cycle, it is essential to model the interplay between self-assembling structural descriptions of the container vesicle and its morphological changes (especially fission resulting in cell division) and the chemical reactions that drive and are are modulated by these processes. An efficient simulation engine on the timescale of the cell life-cyle is required. In this work, we chose to employ an extended Disspiative Particle Dynamics platform that efficiently support membrane dynamics immersed in an aqueous medium : multipole reactive DPD. It was important to first establish the steady state properties of metabolizing vesicles (with amphiphile turnover through chemical reactions), and then against this homeostatic background to investigate the additional processes leading to cell division. As outlined below, this work was successful and could even be extended to allow a study of emergent cell-level selection between different amphiphile production processes.

 

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