Related papers: The generality of transient compartmentalization a…
Transient compartments have been recently shown to be able to maintain functional replicators in the context of prebiotic studies. Motivated by this experiment, we show that a broad class of selection dynamics is able to achieve this goal.…
The compartmentalization of distinct templates in protocells and the exchange of templates between them (migration) are key elements of a modern scenario for prebiotic evolution. Here we use the diffusion approximation of population…
The problem of evolutionary complexification of life is considered one of the fundamental aspects in contemporary evolutionary theory. Parasitism is ubiquitous, inevitable, and arises as soon as the first replicators appear, even during the…
We present a simple mathematical model that captures the evolutionary capabilities of a prebiotic compartment or protocell. In the model the protocell contains an autocatalytic set whose chemical dynamics is coupled to the growth-division…
The emerging field of high-throughput compartmentalized in vitro evolution is a promising new approach to protein engineering. In these experiments, libraries of mutant genotypes are randomly distributed and expressed in microscopic…
An important transition after the origin of life was the first emergence of a Darwinian population, self-reproducing entities exhibiting differential reproduction, phenotypic variation, and inheritance of phenotypic traits. The simplest…
The emergence of replicases that can replicate themselves is a central issue in the origin of life. Recent experiments suggest that such replicases can be realized if an RNA polymerase ribozyme is divided into fragments short enough to be…
We consider a discrete-time host-parasite model for a population of cells which are colonized by proliferating parasites. The cell population grows like an ordinary Galton-Watson process, but in reflection of real biological settings the…
Cells of the human body have nearly identical genome but exhibit very different phenotypes that allow them to carry out specific functions and react to changes in their surrounding environment. This division of labour is achieved by…
It is generally recognized that a distinguishing feature of life is its peculiar capability to avoid equilibration. The origin of this capability and its evolution along the timeline of abiogenesis is not yet understood. We propose to study…
Transposons are small, self-replicating DNA sequences found in every branch of life. Often, one transposon will parasitize another, forming a tiny intracellular ecosystem. In some species these ecosystems thrive, while in others they go…
All life, including cells and artificial protocells, must integrate diverse molecules into a single unit in order to reproduce. Despite expected pressure to evolve a simple system with the fastest replication speed, the mechanism by which…
We describe the evolution of the quantity of parasites in a population of cells which divide in continuous-time. The quantity of parasites in a cell follows a Feller diffusion, which is splitted randomly between the two daughter cells when…
Human mobility and activity patterns mediate contagion on many levels, including the spatial spread of infectious diseases, diffusion of rumors, and emergence of consensus. These patterns however are often dominated by specific locations…
We consider a branching model for a population of dividing cells infected by parasites. Each cell receives parasites by inheritance from its mother cell and independent contamination from outside the population. Parasites multiply randomly…
Early theoretical work revealed that the simplest class of autocatalytic cycles, known as hypercycles, provide an elegant framework for understanding the evolution of mutualism. Furthermore, hypercycles are highly susceptible to parasites,…
We introduce a general class of branching Markov processes for the modelling of a parasite infection in a cell population. Each cell contains a quantity of parasites which evolves as a diffusion with positive jumps. The growth rate,…
A host-parasite model is considered for a population of cells that can be of two types, A or B, and exhibits unilateral reproduction: while a B-cell always splits into two cells of the same type, the two daughter cells of an A-cell can be…
New automated and high-throughput methods allow the manipulation and selection of numerous bacterial populations. In this manuscript we are interested in the neutral diversity patterns that emerge from such a setup in which many bacterial…
The origin of life must have been preceded by Darwin-like evolutionary dynamics that could propagate it. How did that adaptive dynamics arise? And from what prebiotic molecules? Using evolutionary invasion analysis, we develop a universal…