Selection from a pool of self-assembling lipid replicators

Ignacio Colomer, Arseni Borissov and Stephen P. Fletcher ()
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Ignacio Colomer: Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford
Arseni Borissov: Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford
Stephen P. Fletcher: Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Replication and compartmentalization are fundamental to living systems and may have played important roles in life’s origins. Selection in compartmentalized autocatalytic systems might provide a way for evolution to occur and for life to arise from non-living systems. Herein we report selection in a system of self-reproducing lipids where a predominant species can emerge from a pool of competitors. The lipid replicators are metastable and their out-of-equilibrium population can be sustained by feeding the system with starting materials. Phase separation is crucial for selective surfactant formation as well as autocatalytic kinetics; indeed, no selection is observed when all reacting species are dissolved in the same phase. Selectivity is attributed to a kinetically controlled process where the rate of monomer formation determines which replicator building blocks are the fittest. This work reveals how kinetics of a phase-separated autocatalytic reaction may be used to control the population of out-of-equilibrium replicators in time.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13903-x

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