Synchronization phenomena in protocell models

Almost all life forms known today, are composed by cells, fundamental constituting units able to self–replicate and evolve through changes in genetic information; it is generally believed that this was not the case when first life–forms emerged on Earth almost 4 billion years ago. These protocells were much simpler, probably exhibiting only few simplified functionalities, that required a primitive embodiment structure, a protometabolism and a rudimentary genetics, so to guarantee that offsprings were similar to their parents. Artificial protocells have not yet been reproduced and intense research programs are being established aiming at developing reference models to capture the essence of the first protocells appeared on earth and enableto monitor their subsequent evolution. The interest for these researches is motivated either by the quest to understand which are the minimal requirements for a life form to exist and evolve, or by the search for indications about the way in which primitive life might have developed on earth. Moreover besides from their interest for the origin–of–life problem, protocells may be of practical interest in applications: obtain populations ofprotocells that grow and reproduce, specialized for useful tasks, like drug synthesis and reduce pollution.Because protocells didn’t yet exist, in order to study how they can develop researchers have considered simplified models able to capture general behaviors, without carefully adding complicating details.