Mavelli Fabio, Ruiz-Mirazo Kepa
Department of Chemistry, University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2007 Oct 29;362(1486):1789-802. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2071.
This paper is a theoretical attempt to gain insight into the problem of how self-assembling vesicles (closed bilayer structures) could progressively turn into minimal self-producing and self-reproducing cells, i.e. into interesting candidates for (proto)biological systems. With this aim, we make use of a recently developed object-oriented platform to carry out stochastic simulations of chemical reaction networks that take place in dynamic cellular compartments. We apply this new tool to study the behaviour of different minimal cell models, making realistic assumptions about the physico-chemical processes and conditions involved (e.g. thermodynamic equilibrium/non-equilibrium, variable volume-to-surface relationship, osmotic pressure, solute diffusion across the membrane due to concentration gradients, buffering effect). The new programming platform has been designed to analyse not only how a single protometabolic cell could maintain itself, grow or divide, but also how a collection of these cells could 'evolve' as a result of their mutual interactions in a common environment.
本文是一次理论尝试，旨在深入了解自组装囊泡（封闭双层结构）如何逐步转变为最小的自我产生和自我复制细胞，即成为（原始）生物系统的有趣候选者。为此，我们利用最近开发的面向对象平台对动态细胞区室中发生的化学反应网络进行随机模拟。我们应用这个新工具来研究不同最小细胞模型的行为，对所涉及的物理化学过程和条件（例如热力学平衡/非平衡、可变的体积与表面积关系、渗透压、由于浓度梯度导致的溶质跨膜扩散、缓冲效应）做出现实假设。这个新的编程平台不仅旨在分析单个原代谢细胞如何维持自身、生长或分裂，还旨在分析这些细胞的集合如何由于它们在共同环境中的相互作用而“进化”。
