Definition
Autocatalysis is catalysis by one or more of the products of a reaction. Autocatalysis is often seen as the minimal requirement for the emergence of life, as it is at the core of modern biogenetic theories based on genetic replicators, metabolic networks, and containment reproducers. Autocatalysis is one of the pathways for chiral symmetry breaking and is also responsible for the formation of patterns and ordered periodic behavior in chemical reactions. While autocatalytic phenomena have been observed in fields as diverse as cell biology and nonlinear physics, their general study is the subject of the emergent field of “Systems Chemistry.”
Overview
Autocatalytic reactions are described by the equation:
where a and p are reaction orders, P is the autocatalyst, and A is a precursor molecule. The autocatalytic reaction order p determines the “explosivity” of the product growth, which increases from parabolic (p= ½) to...
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References and Further Reading
Bachmann PA, Luisi PL, Lang J (1992) Autocatalytic self-replicating micelles as models for prebiotic structures. Nature 357:57–59
Blackmond D (2004) Asymmetric autocatalysis and its implications for the origin of homochirality. Proc Natl Acad Sci 101:5732–5736
Eigen M, Schuster P (1979) The hypercycle – a principle of natural self-organization. Springer, Berlin
Epstein IR, Pojman JA (1998) An introduction to nonlinear chemical dynamics: oscillations, waves, patterns, and chaos. Oxford University Press, New York
See the Memorandum of Understanding of the Systems Chemistry at European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) site http://w3.cost.esf.org/index.php?id=189%26action_number=CM0703
Sievers D, von Kiedrowski G (1994) Self-replication of complementary nucleotide-based oligomers. Nature 369:221–224
Szathmary E (2006) The origin of replicators and reproducers. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361:1761–1776
Vidonne A, Philp D (2009) Making molecules make themselves – the chemistry of artificial replicators. Eur J Org Chem 5:593–610
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Taran, O., von Kiedrowski, G. (2014). Autocatalysis. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_138-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_138-3
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