Mutually Catalytic Amphiphiles: Simulated Chemical Evolution and Implications to Exobiology*

A description of the emergence of life should delineate a chemically rigorous gradual transition from random collections of simple organic molecules to spatially confined assemblies displaying rudimentary self-reproduction capacity. It has been suggested that large sets of mutually catalytic molecules, and not self-replicating information-carrying biopolymers, could have been the precursors of life. We present here a stochastic model in which the mutually catalytic molecules are spontaneously aggregating amphiphiles. When such amphiphiles exert on each other random catalytic effects, biased molecular compositions emerge, that are endowed with replication-like properties. This approach may have important consequences to the understanding of very early chemical evolution. It could also guide a search for extraterrestrial forms of very primitive life.