A model of protocell based on the introduction of a semi-permeable membrane in a stochastic model of catalytic reaction networks

Roberto Serra
(University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Alessandro Filisetti
(European Centre for Living Technology)
Alex Graudenzi
(Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication University of Milan Bicocca)
Chiara Damiani
(Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication University of Milan Bicocca)
Marco Villani
(University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)

In this work we introduce some preliminary analyses on the role of a semi-permeable membrane in the dynamics of a stochastic model of catalytic reaction sets (CRSs) of molecules. The results of the simulations performed on ensembles of randomly generated reaction schemes highlight remarkable differences between this very simple protocell description model and the classical case of the continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR). In particular, in the CSTR case, distinct simulations with the same reaction scheme reach the same dynamical equilibrium, whereas, in the protocell case, simulations with identical reaction schemes can reach very different dynamical states, despite starting from the same initial conditions.

In Alex Graudenzi, Giulio Caravagna, Giancarlo Mauri and Marco Antoniotti: Proceedings Wivace 2013 - Italian Workshop on Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation (Wivace 2013), Milan, Italy, July 1-2, 2013, Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 130, pp. 70–73.
Published: 30th September 2013.

ArXived at: https://dx.doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.130.10 bibtex PDF
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