Connections Between Mathematical Models of Prebiotic Evolution and Homochirality

Abstract

The evolutionary dynamics of prebiotic replicators and the amplification kinetics leading to homochirality share certain features and properties, such as the emergence of a certain type that achieves high abundance. The study of replicator dynamics and the study of the origin of homochirality have both seen numerous advances, both theoretical and experimental, in the last decades. Experimental models formulated in these fields are quite different one from the other, and these fields have traditionally been viewed as separate undertakings. However, despite differences in formalisms, it is remarkable that mathematical descriptions used to explain the behavior of replicating entities can be transformed into the mathematical descriptions of models leading to enantiomeric symmetry breaking. Thus two important phenomena during the origin of life, the selection of replicators and the origin of biological homochirality, share similar dynamics.