Abstract
In the previous chapters we have discussed some protocell models and we have analysed their behaviour in depth, so now it is time to consider what we have learnt, which questions have been at least partially answered, which questions are still open and which new questions have arisen. In this final chapter we will therefore take the liberty of revisiting and repeating some arguments that have already been dealt with in the previous chapters.
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Notes
- 1.
In order to ease the reading, we will not repeat here in this chapter all the references to the relevant papers, referring the reader to the previous chapters for further bibliography.
- 2.
A comment that may be relevant for those interested in studying the origin of life (OOL) problem.
- 3.
As discussed in Chap. 1, we assume that the properties of a “lifelike organization” are (i) metabolism (ii) reproduction with inheritance and variation and (iii) evolution.
- 4.
This might also be related to the approach of the so-called statistical mechanics of self-replication, which suggests that thermodynamic “forces” may be at work to lead to the emergence of self-replication.
- 5.
The main qualitative conclusions are valid also if the thresholds are imposed on the size of the membrane surface.
- 6.
see Chap. 5 for a more detailed discussion.
- 7.
More precisely, when a sufficiently high number of different molecular species is present.
- 8.
The first value would be the most relevant if the catalysts could be built from small continuously supplied building blocks; however, as it has already been stressed, present organic catalysis is based on macromolecules that cannot be assembled in single shots from small precursors.
- 9.
Apart from some obvious remarks, concerning the dependence of the model behavior upon the overall available energy: for example, if several reactions take place only with activated substrates, and if only a small fraction of substrates is activated then no autocatalytic cycle is observed even for parameter values that would allow them to appear in the model without energy requirements.
- 10.
- 11.
Which would allow the synthesis of artificial protocells with sophisticated capabilities, and would also resemble what happens in biological cells.
- 12.
An interesting, quite realistic possibility is to assume a spectrum of possible values of the permeability to various molecular types.
- 13.
Whose volume is assumed to be much larger.
- 14.
The onset of a proton concentration gradient in a giant vesicle has recently been experimentally shown in Altamura et al. (2017).
- 15.
The only plausible, much more complicated, alternative seems to be the introduction of sophisticated checks before the start of replication, as it happens in present-day cells.
- 16.
i.e. under a broad range of conditions.
- 17.
Recall that we ignore here the detailed taxonomy of (sub)RAFs, see note (11) in Sect. 6.3.
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Serra, R., Villani, M. (2017). Conclusions, Open Questions and Perspectives. In: Modelling Protocells. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1160-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1160-7_6
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