A chemically fuelled self-replicator
| Autor: | Morrow, S, Colomer, I, Fletcher, S |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Nature Communications Nature Communications, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2019) |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-019-08885-9 |
| Popis: | The continuous consumption of chemical energy powers biological systems so that they can operate functional supramolecular structures. A goal of modern science is to understand how simple chemical mixtures may transition from non-living components to truly emergent systems and the production of new lifelike materials and machines. In this work a replicator can be maintained out-of-equilibrium by the continuous consumption of chemical energy. The system is driven by the autocatalytic formation of a metastable surfactant whose breakdown products are converted back into building blocks by a chemical fuel. The consumption of fuel allows the high-energy replicators to persist at a steady state, much like a simple metabolic cycle. Thermodynamically-driven reactions effect a unidirectional substrate flux as the system tries to regain equilibrium. The metastable replicator persists at a higher concentration than achieved even transiently in a closed system, and its concentration is responsive to the rate of fuel supply. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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