Selection of Catalysts through Cellular Reproduction

Abstract

It has been pointed out that if an autocatalytic cycle produces primitive membrane chemicals, it can compose a self-maintaining proto cell. Moreover, it is known that a proto cell can divide itself spontaneously as it grows. An unsolved problem is how such a catalytic system can evolve in the pre-cellular environment. Here we examine, as the first step, the evolution of catalysts that have different activity in generating membrane chemicals using a Lattice-Gas-like model. We demonstrated that a self-replicating proto-cell emerges from random initial configuration. We also showed that cells with higher activity of membrane production evolve through cellular selection.