A chemically fueled non-enzymatic bistable network
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
One of the grand challenges in contemporary systems chemistry research is to mimic life-like functions using simple synthetic molecular networks. This is particularly true for systems that are out of chemical equilibrium and show complex dynamic behaviour, such as multi-stability, oscillations and chaos. We report here on thiodepsipeptide-based non-enzymatic networks propelled by reversible replication processes out of equilibrium, displaying bistability. Accordingly, we present quantitative analyses of the bistable behaviour, featuring a phase transition from the simple equilibration processes taking place in reversible dynamic chemistry into the bistable region. This behaviour is observed only when the system is continuously fueled by a reducing agent that keeps it far from equilibrium, and only when operating within a specifically defined parameter space. We propose that the development of biomimetic bistable systems will pave the way towards the study of more elaborate functions, such as information transfer and signalling.
Date Issued
2019-10-11
Date Acceptance
2019-09-10
Citation
Nature Communications, 2019, 10 (1)
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Research
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
10
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31604941
PII: 10.1038/s41467-019-12645-0
Subjects
Biomimetics
Depsipeptides
Kinetics
Oxidation-Reduction
Signal Transduction
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
ARTN 4636