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Cited by 13Origins and Evolution of LifeAdvanced Thermodynamics and Statistical MechanicsRNA and protein synthesis mechanisms

Thermodynamics of Duplication Thresholds in Synthetic Protocell Systems

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Corominas-Murtra, Bernat·2019·Life
DOI 10.3390/life9010009PMC PMC6462945
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Abstract

Understanding the thermodynamics of the duplication process is a fundamental step towards a comprehensive physical theory of biological systems. However, the immense complexity of real cells obscures the fundamental tensions between energy gradients and entropic contributions that underlie duplication. The study of synthetic, feasible systems reproducing part of the key ingredients of living entities but overcoming major sources of biological complexity is of great relevance to deepen the comprehension of the fundamental thermodynamic processes underlying life and its prevalence. In this paper an abstract—yet realistic—synthetic system made of small synthetic protocell aggregates is studied in detail. A fundamental relation between free energy and entropic gradients is derived for a general, non-equilibrium scenario, setting the thermodynamic conditions for the occurrence and prevalence of duplication phenomena. This relation sets explicitly how the energy gradients invested in creating and maintaining structural—and eventually, functional—elements of the system must always compensate the entropic gradients, whose contributions come from changes in the translational, configurational, and macrostate entropies, as well as from dissipation due to irreversible transitions. Work/energy relations are also derived, defining lower bounds on the energy required for the duplication event to take place. A specific example including real ternary emulsions is provided in order to grasp the orders of magnitude involved in the problem. It is found that the minimal work invested over the system to trigger a duplication event is around ~ 10 − 13 J , which results, in the case of duplication of all the vesicles contained in a liter of emulsion, in an amount of energy around ~ 1 kJ . Without aiming to describe a truly biological process of duplication, this theoretical contribution seeks to explicitly define and identify the key actors that participate in it.

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  • Models have shown that cell division through growth and instability is possible in an information-free context where only metabolism and compartment are present, both in amphiphile-based vesicles and micelles.

    “But models have also shown that such a possibility exists in an information-free context where only metabolism and compartment are present, both in amphiphile-based vesicles [167–169] and micelles [164,170].”

    From Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems (2024) · cites this paper as [169]

    The Introduction describes a model with a compartment, resource-to-building-block processes, and no information or replication dynamics; the Discussion says its driven emulsion aggregates can duplicate. But the model is presented as a generic emulsion system, and our copy does not establish that its duplication result specifically applies to micelles, the part of the citing sentence to which this citation is attached. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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Sorted by citations

Authors
Corominas-Murtra, B.
Affiliations
Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Am Campus 1, A-3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
ORCID
Corominas-Murtra, Bernat
Venue
Life
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2019-01-15
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
9
ISSN
2075-1729 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/life9010009
PMC
PMC6462945
OpenAlex
W2899873407
Cited by
13
References
3
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 5
FWCI
1.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Life (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Institute of Science and Technology Austria (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
Keywords
protocells, thermodynamics of life, free energy, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, work-energy theorem, vesicles, energy dissipation, origin of life, configurational entropy

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