Protocell Bioreactor: Self-Replicating Life in a Controlled Vessel

Vessel Environment

Temperature 37 °C

Nutrient supply 1.00×

Membrane permeability 1.00×

Replication fidelity 96%

Bioreactor State

Population: 1 protocell
Status: growing

Population

Divisions total

Mean radius

0.30 µm*

Mean vitality

100%

How it works

Each protocell is a lipid-bounded compartment of volume V with membrane surface area A ∝ V^(2/3). Nutrients cross the membrane by passive diffusion, driven by the concentration gradient and scaled by a temperature-dependent rate (Arrhenius-like: faster reactions at higher T, but denaturation above ~55 °C):

dN/dt = k(T) · P · A · (C_ext − C_int)
dV/dt = γ · N_int          (uptake → biomass)
k(T)  = k0 · exp(−|T−37|/12)  (optimum near 37 °C)

When V exceeds a division threshold V_div, the protocell splits into two daughters, each with half the volume. Replication fidelity sets how precisely the division threshold and growth rate are inherited — low fidelity means daughters drift further from the parent's "genome," some inviable. A protocell whose vitality (net energy balance) drops to zero lyses and is removed.

Temperature — shifts the reaction-rate multiplier k(T); too cold starves the population, too hot denatures it.
Nutrient supply — sets external concentration C_ext; scarcity starves growth, abundance can overload division rate.
Membrane permeability — controls how fast nutrients cross the lipid boundary; too low starves cells even in rich medium, too high lets waste leak vitality away.
Replication fidelity — the inheritance noise on daughter thresholds; low fidelity produces more non-viable daughters (shown dim/red) that soon lyse.

This models the core engineering problem of synthetic minimal-cell biology: sustaining an artificial self-replicating compartment requires actively controlling its physicochemical environment, not just seeding it with a genome — exactly the "controlled environment" framing of protocell and origin-of-life research (e.g. Szostak-lab fatty-acid vesicles).

* arbitrary simulation units, illustrative of relative scale only — not a calibrated physical measurement.

Healthy protocell Stressed Dying

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