Escalation of error catastrophe for enzymatic self-replicators

Arnold-Sommerfeld-Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München - Theresienstr. 37, 80333 München, Germany, EU

Corresponding author: frey@physik.lmu.de

Received: 24 July 2009
Accepted: 9 November 2009

Abstract

It is a long-standing question in origin-of-life research whether the information content of replicating molecules can be maintained in the presence of replication errors. Extending standard quasispecies models of non-enzymatic replication, we analyze highly specific enzymatic self-replication mediated through an otherwise neutral recognition region, which leads to frequency-dependent replication rates. We find a significant reduction of the maximally tolerable error rate, because the replication rate of the fittest molecules decreases with the fraction of functional enzymes. Our analysis is extended to hypercyclic couplings as an example for catalytic networks.