Hypercycles and compartments: Compartments assists—but do not replace—Hypercyclic organization of early genetic information

Abstract

The development of the first protocells proceeded by mechanisms which were governed by three principles: 1. (1) Self-reproduction of molecules identical or similar to modern RNAs was required to transmit information from mother to daughter molecules. 2. (2) Evolution of these molecules to improve their phenotypic qualities—stability, error-proneness, and reproduction rate—proceeded in hypercyclically organized systems in which the total information content was distributed over a number of information carriers. 3. (3) Compartmentation, insofar as it was not already necessary for protection against parasitic infection, became necessary for utilization of genotypic qualities, i.e. the nature of the macromolecules formed as translation products of the information carriers. With reśpect to their different goals, principles (2) and (3) are not interchangeable. A contrary claim advanced by Bresch, Niesert & Harnasch is based on a particular model for evolution that ignores the appearance of mutants with differing selective values. In such a non-realistic model, error threshold is of no importance for the stability of the wild-type.