Vesicular protocell life-cycle

Vesicular replication

The mprDPD simulation platform has concentrated on the interplay of amphiphile reaction kinetics with the morphological dynamics of self-assembling vesicular structures and their analogues.


The studies of steady state budding homeostasis can be extended to a full vesicle reproduction lifecycle using the mechanism below

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The details of the mechanism are explained in the other sections (2 and 3) above.

When combined with the surface catalysed resource enrichment mechanism of Serra and colleagues at the ECLT, this mechanism for self-reproducing artificial cells can also be augmented with an efficient scavenging metabolism for key resources.

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This life cycle has also been used as the basis for an evolutionary selection experiment, showing how physical simulation models, combined with chemical kinetics can lead to biological selection of artificial cells.

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