Autocatalysis in Chemical Networks: Unifications and Extensions

02 July 2020, Version 2
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Autocatalysis is an essential property for theories of abiogenesis and chemical evolution. However, the different formalisms proposed so far seemingly address different forms of autocatalysis and it remains unclear whether all of them have been captured. Furthermore, the lack of unified framework thus far prevents a systematic study of autocatalysis. Here, we derive general stoichiometric conditions for catalysis and autocatalysis in chemical reaction networks from basic principles in chemistry. This allows for a classification of minimal autocatalytic motifs, which includes all known autocatalytic systems and motifs that had not been reported previously. We further examine conditions for kinetic viability of such networks, which depends on the autocatalytic motifs they contain. Finally, we show how this framework extends the range of conceivable autocatalytic systems, by applying our stoichiometric and kinetic analysis to autocatalysis emerging from coupled compartments. The unified approach to autocatalysis presented in this work lays a foundation towards the building of a systems-level theory of chemical evolution.

Keywords

Autocatalysis
Catalysis
Origins of Life
Evolution
Chemical Networks
Theory
Framework

Supplementary materials

Title
Description
Actions
Title
EmergentAutocatAnimation
Description
Actions

Comments

Comments are not moderated before they are posted, but they can be removed by the site moderators if they are found to be in contravention of our Commenting Policy [opens in a new tab] - please read this policy before you post. Comments should be used for scholarly discussion of the content in question. You can find more information about how to use the commenting feature here [opens in a new tab] .
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy [opens in a new tab] and Terms of Service [opens in a new tab] apply.