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Fig. 2 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Fig. 2

From: From molecular to cellular form: modeling the first major transition during the arising of life

Fig. 2

The spread of REP. The vertical axis represents the number of molecules. The system is a 20 × 20 grid (i.e., N = 20), 80,000 nucleotide precursors (Np) are introduced in the beginning (i.e. TNPB = 80,000), no amphiphile precursors are introduced (i.e. TAPB = 0), and other parameters adopt default values (Table 1). The subfigures are showing the same case with different time scales. a A balance between nucleotides and their precursors is reached soon. b 50 REP molecules with a sequence of “CSTag + CSREP + CSTag” (see Methods for explanation, Fig. 16) are inoculated at step 1 × 105 (see arrow) into the system (distributed in 10 adjacent grid rooms at center, five each). The REP spreads in the system and reaches a balance. Parasites (in the context of this paper) mean the RNA molecules with two end-CSTags, but without a CSREP (i.e., with another sequence instead, or no corresponding sequence) in between. c The REP’s balance lasts, but more than a half of the nucleotide precursors remain unused

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