Survival of self-replicating molecules under transient compartmentalization with natural selection

Abstract

The problem of the emergence and survival of self-replicating molecules in origin-of-life 1 scenarios is plagued by the error catastrophe, which is usually escaped by considering effects of 2 compartmentalization, as in the stochastic corrector model. By addressing the problem in a simple 3 system composed of a self-replicating molecule (a replicase) and a parasite molecule that needs the 4 replicase for copying itself, we show that transient (rather than permanent) compartmentalization 5 is sufficient to the task. We also exhibit a regime in which the concentrations of the two kinds of 6 molecules undergo sustained oscillations. Our model should be relevant not only for origin-of-life 7 scenarios but also for describing directed evolution experiments, which increasingly rely on transient 8 compartmentalization with pooling and natural selection.9