The construction of artificial cells based on the encapsulation of chemical reacting systems inside lipid vesicles is rapidly progressing in recent years. Several groups are currently interested in synthesizing such simple cell models for biotechnological purposes or for investigating origin of life scenarios. Within this context, the properties of lipid vesicles (e.g., their stability, permeability, growth dynamics, potential to host reactions or undergo division processes…) play a central role, in combination with the dynamics of the encapsulated chemical or biochemical networks. Thus, from a theoretical standpoint, it is very important to develop deterministic equations in order to explore first - and specify later - the conditions that allow the robust implementation of these complex chemically reacting systems, as well as their controlled reproduction. Due to their intrinsic compartmentalized nature, the population of reacting molecules can be very low in terms of number of molecules so that their behaviour can be highly affected by stochastic effects both in the time course of their reactions and in their occupancy distribution among the vesicle population. In this contribution we report our mathematical approaches to model artificial cell systems in this complex scenario, with emphasis on the issue of primitive cell (protocell) systems.
STOCHASTIC SIMULATIONS OF MINIMAL CELL MODEL SYSTEMS
MAVELLI, Fabio;Altamura E;
2013-01-01
Abstract
The construction of artificial cells based on the encapsulation of chemical reacting systems inside lipid vesicles is rapidly progressing in recent years. Several groups are currently interested in synthesizing such simple cell models for biotechnological purposes or for investigating origin of life scenarios. Within this context, the properties of lipid vesicles (e.g., their stability, permeability, growth dynamics, potential to host reactions or undergo division processes…) play a central role, in combination with the dynamics of the encapsulated chemical or biochemical networks. Thus, from a theoretical standpoint, it is very important to develop deterministic equations in order to explore first - and specify later - the conditions that allow the robust implementation of these complex chemically reacting systems, as well as their controlled reproduction. Due to their intrinsic compartmentalized nature, the population of reacting molecules can be very low in terms of number of molecules so that their behaviour can be highly affected by stochastic effects both in the time course of their reactions and in their occupancy distribution among the vesicle population. In this contribution we report our mathematical approaches to model artificial cell systems in this complex scenario, with emphasis on the issue of primitive cell (protocell) systems.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
