D. Segre et al., GRADED AUTOCATALYSIS REPLICATION DOMAIN (GARD) - KINETIC-ANALYSIS OF SELF-REPLICATION IN MUTUALLY CATALYTIC SETS, Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere, 28(4-6), 1998, pp. 501-514
A Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain (GARD) model is proposed, wh
ich provides a rigorous kinetic analysis of simple chemical sets that
manifest mutual catalysis. It is shown that catalytic closure can sust
ain self-replication up to a critical dilution rate, lambda(c), relate
d to the graded extent of mutual catalysis. We explore the behavior of
vesicles containing GARD species whose mutual catalysis is governed b
y a previously published statistical distribution. In the population t
hus generated, some GARD vesicles display a significantly higher repli
cation efficiency than most others. GARD thus represents a simple mode
l for primordial chemical selection of mutually catalytic sets.