Kinetic Origin of Heredity in a Replicating System with a Catalytic Network

Abstract

The origin of heredity is studied as a recursive state in a replicating proto-cell consisting of many molecule species in mutually catalyzing reaction networks. Protocells divide when the number of molecules, increasing due to replication, exceeds a certain threshold. We study how the chemicals in a catalytic network can form recursive production states in the presence of errors in the replication process. Depending on the balance between the total number of molecules in a cell and the number of molecule species, we have found three phases; a phase without a recursive production state, a phase with itinerancy over a few recursive states, and a phase with fixed recursive production states. Heredity is realized in the latter two phases where molecule species that are population-wise in the minority are preserved and control the phenotype of the cell. It is shown that evolvability is realized in the itinerancy phase, where a change in the number of minority molecules controls a change of the chemical state.