John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Department of Mathematics, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02453, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Jul 19;123(3):038102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.038102.
The growth, form, and division of prebiotic vesicles, membraneous bags of fluid of varying components and shapes is hypothesized to have served as the substrate for the origin of life. The dynamics of these out-of-equilibrium structures is controlled by physicochemical processes that include the intercalation of amphiphiles into the membrane, fluid flow across the membrane, and elastic deformations of the membrane. To understand prebiotic vesicular forms and their dynamics, we construct a minimal model that couples membrane growth, deformation, and fluid permeation, ultimately couched in terms of two dimensionless parameters that characterize the relative rate of membrane growth and the membrane permeability. Numerical simulations show that our model captures the morphological diversity seen in extant precursor mimics of cellular life, and might provide simple guidelines for the synthesis of these complex shapes from simple ingredients.
前生物囊泡（具有不同成分和形状的液膜囊）的生长、形态和分裂，被假设为生命起源的基础。这些非平衡结构的动力学受到物理化学过程的控制，包括两亲物插入膜、膜两侧的流体流动以及膜的弹性变形。为了理解前生物囊泡的形态和动力学，我们构建了一个最小模型，该模型将膜的生长、变形和流体渗透耦合起来，最终用两个无量纲参数来描述，这两个参数分别表征了膜生长的相对速率和膜的渗透性。数值模拟表明，我们的模型能够捕捉到现存细胞生命前体模拟物中所呈现的形态多样性，并且可能为从简单成分合成这些复杂形状提供简单的指导。
