Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 49: Physics of the Genesis of Life - Focus Session organized by Moritz Kreysing and Dieter Braun
BP 49.4: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 23. März 2017, 10:30–10:45, SCH A251
Could dividing active droplets provide a model for protocells? — •Rabea Seyboldt1, David Zwicker1,2, Christoph A. Weber1,2, Anthony A. Hyman3, and Frank Jülicher1 — 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, 01187 Dresden, Germany — 2School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA — 3Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Macromolecular aggregation and phase separation into droplets has been proposed as a mechanism to organize chemical reactions that could have been a key precursors at the origins of the first living cells. However, it remains unclear how early protocells could have proliferated and divided. Deformed droplets usually relax towards a spherical shape and do not easily divide. Our theoretical study shows that in the presence of chemical reactions that produce droplet material, a chemically active droplet may undergo a shape instability and subsequently divide into two daughter droplets, which may then grow and divide again. We also find that when considering the effects of hydrodynamics which tend to stabilize spherical droplets, the shape instability can still occur for sufficiently small droplets. Our work suggests that chemically active droplets that divide and propagate could serve as a model for prebiotic protocells.