Branching processes in the compartment model of RNA world

Abstract

One of the most important factors of contemporary life is compartmentalization. At some level in the history of this process, primitive cells emerged from the primordial broth. Significant parameter of these formation is the amount of information (i.e., in the form of RNA strands) that can be hold by single entity. This value can be denoted in laboratory experiments, mathematical models or computer simulations. Laboratory experiments are expensive and takes time. Simulation methods let us easily modify reproduced conditions and processes, however usually require a lot of computational power and time. Mathematical methods are much more faster, but often require some simplifications in model's description. In this article we present hybrid simulation-mathematical model, which takes the best from these two methods and is used to denote maximum number of different types of primordial genes in primitive cell like formations. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.