Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 10, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08885-9
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Funding
- EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Synthesis for Biology and Medicine [EP/L015838/1]
- Oxford-Radcliffe Scholarship
- EPSRC [EP/M0025241/1]
- ERC [681491]
- EPSRC [EP/M025241/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- European Research Council (ERC) [681491] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
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The continuous consumption of chemical energy powers biological systems so that they can operate functional supramolecular structures. A goal of modern science is to understand how simple chemical mixtures may transition from non-living components to truly emergent systems and the production of new lifelike materials and machines. In this work a replicator can be maintained out-of-equilibrium by the continuous consumption of chemical energy. The system is driven by the autocatalytic formation of a metastable surfactant whose breakdown products are converted back into building blocks by a chemical fuel. The consumption of fuel allows the high-energy replicators to persist at a steady state, much like a simple metabolic cycle. Thermodynamically-driven reactions effect a unidirectional substrate flux as the system tries to regain equilibrium. The metastable replicator persists at a higher concentration than achieved even transiently in a closed system, and its concentration is responsive to the rate of fuel supply.
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