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It is suggested that life originated in a three-step process referred to as the jigsaw model. RNA, proteins, or similar organic molecules polymerized in a dehydrated carbon-rich environment, on surfaces in a carbon-rich environment, or in…
Large and complex molecules are building blocks for life. We compute probabilities for their formation from an average non-equilibrium model. As the distance from thermodynamic equilibrium is increased in this model, so too are the chances…
Organisms leave a distinctive chemical signature in their environment because they synthesize those molecules that maximize their fitness. As a result, the relative concentrations of related chemical monomers in life-bearing environmental…
Organic molecules are widely present in the dense interstellar medium, and many have been synthesized in the laboratory on Earth under the conditions typical for an interstellar environment. Until now, however, only relatively small…
Many models for the origin of life have focused on understanding how evolution can drive the refinement of a preexisting enzyme, such as the evolution of efficient replicase activity. Here we present a model for what was, arguably, an even…
The poly-tRNA model was recently presented for the origin and evolution of genetic coding. This model has led to a rather precise description of what might have occurred at the beginning of protein synthesis in the first life form. Here, we…
Implicit in the RNA world hypothesis is that prebiotic RNA synthesis, despite occurring in an environment without biochemical catalysts, produced the long RNA polymers which are essential to the formation of life. In order to investigate…
Prior to the origin of simple cellular life, the building blocks of RNA (nucleotides) had to form and polymerize in favourable environments on the early Earth. At this time, meteorites and interplanetary dust particles delivered organics…
Emergence and maintenance of polymers with complex sequences is a major question in the study of origins of life. To answer this, we studied a model polymerization reaction, where polymers are synthesized by stepwise ligation from two types…
We study a one-dimensional lattice of $N$ sites each occupied by a mathematical "polymer," that is, is a binary random sequence of arbitrary length $n$, or equivalently, a rooted path of $n$ links on an infinite binary tree. The average…
Self-assembly of proteins is a biological phenomenon which gives rise to spontaneous formation of amyloid fibrils or polymers. The starting point of this phase, called nucleation exhibits an important variability among replicated…
In the study of life's origins, a key challenge is understanding how RNA could have polymerized and subsequently replicated in early Earth. We present a theoretical and computational framework to model the non-enzymatic polymerization of…
Polymers consisting of more than one type of monomer, known as copolymers, are vital to both living and synthetic systems. Copolymerisation has been studied theoretically in a number of contexts, often by considering a Markov process in…
The peptides in biosystems are homochiral polymers of L-amino acids, but razemisate slowly by an active isomerization kinetics. The chemical reactions in biosystems are, however, reversible and what racemisates the peptides at the water…
We study theoretically the dynamics of living polymers which can add and subtract monomer units at their live chain ends. The classic example is ionic living polymerization. In equilibrium, a delicate balance is maintained in which each…
The aims of this paper are to propose, construct and analyse microscopic kinetic models for the emergence of long chains of RNA from monomeric beta-D-ribonucleotide precursors in prebiotic circumstances. Our theory starts out from similar…
A simple model of a polymer is considered: a chain of (different) point masses, connected by harmonic springs, embedded in two dimensional space. In order to determine conditions for existence and stability of breather excitations, the…
In this work we used dissipative particle dynamics simulations to study the copolymerization process in the presence of spatial heterogeneities caused by incompatibility between polymerizing monomers. The polymer sequence details as well as…
The RNA World hypothesis predicts that self-replicating RNAs evolved before DNA genomes and coded proteins. Despite widespread support for the RNA World, self-replicating RNAs have yet to be identified in a natural context, leaving a key…
The outer solar system may provide a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life. Remote sensing data from the Galileo spacecraft suggest that the jovian icy moons, Europa, Ganymede, and possibly Callisto, may harbor liquid water oceans…