Dynamic Self-organization in an Open Reaction Network as a Fundamental Mechanism for the Emergence of Life

The emergence of life on the earth has attracted intense attention but still remained an unsolved question. A key problem is that it has been left unclear why a living organism can have self-organizing ability leading to highly ordered structures and evolutionary behavior. This work reveals by computer simulation and experiments that a stationary state of an open reaction network, into which some source substances flow at constant rates, really has such self-organizing ability. The point is that reaction and diffusion processes in an open reaction network are irreversible and always forced to approach equilibrium. Therefore, they necessarily reach a stationary state in which they approach equilibrium to the largest extent as a whole and attain a full balance. This means that a stationary state of an open reaction network is firmly stabilized by irreversible reaction and diffusion processes and kept stable against fluctuation, namely it has ability to organize itself. A stationary state of an open reaction network is also flexible in structure and can evolve based on its own self-organizing ability through interaction with the environment. Thus, this work provides a new general mechanism of self-organization and evolution in a prebiotic chemical system, which is expected to have acted as a fundamental principle for the emergence of life on the earth. It is interesting to note that a network of reversible processes in a machine has no self-organizing ability because a reversible process has no property of spontaneously and irreversibly happening in a particular direction.