Framing major prebiotic transitions as stages of protocell development: three challenges for origins-of-life research

• Ben Shirt-Ediss,
• Sara Murillo-Sánchez and
• Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1388–1395, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.135

• origins of life – reviewed in [46] – or in more recent theoretical proposals, like those pointing to the concept of dynamic kinetic stability [63] – see comments below). Protocells constitute ‘scaffolds’ in which a high diversity of functional components may be hooked (including those very replicating

• avenues in the field of systems chemistry [1][2]. For instance, although kinetic control mechanisms must play a central part in the explanation, dynamic kinetic stability [63] is not the answer (because replication is not all what matters for evolution, chemical or biological). It is probably too early to

Towards open-ended evolution in self-replicating molecular systems

• Herman Duim and
• Sijbren Otto

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1189–1203, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.118

• then end up being selected depends on their rates of replication relative to their rate of destruction, or, as proposed by Pross, their dynamic kinetic stability [14]. Selection in the Darwinian sense requires extinction of the weaker replicators, so that only the fitter ones remain. There are some

• but also at the level of entire ecosystems [16]. 1.4 Dynamic kinetic stability Pross has introduced the useful concept of dynamic kinetic stability for describing the fate of systems in which replication and selection occur concurrently [14]. The idea is that the stability of a self-replicator in a

• considerations of dynamic kinetic stability to apply and in order for Darwinian evolution to occur, it is essential that replicators are subjected to a replication–destruction regime. Unfortunately, until now, very few systems reported in the literature are (see below). 1.5 Open-ended evolution As mentioned

How and why kinetics, thermodynamics, and chemistry induce the logic of biological evolution

• Addy Pross and
• Robert Pascal

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 665–674, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.66

• rule. Even though the Second Law remains an inescapable constraint, under energy-fuelled, far-from-equilibrium conditions, populations of chemical systems capable of exponential growth can manifest another kind of stability, dynamic kinetic stability (DKS). It is this stability kind based on time

• -organisation of life, which, in turn, allows an assessment of semi-quantitative constraints on systems and environments from which life could evolve. Keywords: dynamic kinetic stability; kinetic control; origins of life; self-organisation; Introduction Although it is mostly understood in historic terms, the

• analogue seems out of reach at present. Thus though the evolution of a dynamic system based on entities able to self-reproduce is continuously governed by an increase of dynamic kinetic stability, predicting the result of long-term evolution becomes impossible, primarily because it depends on the