Physical Life of a Prebiotic Vesicle: Osmotic Breathing

Key Points

• The study aims to understand how prebiotic vesicles can grow and reproduce through physical processes driven by osmotic changes.
• Develop a minimal physical model of a prebiotic vesicle influenced by wet-dry cycles.
• Analyze the effects of external osmolarity on vesicle behavior over time.
• Investigate the role of slowly permeable osmolytes in shaping membrane dynamics.
• Vesicles exhibit repeated cycles of shrinking and swelling due to osmotic pressure changes.
• The presence of osmolytes leads to increased membrane tension and emergence of physical memory.
• Threshold phenomena such as transient pores and shape instabilities facilitate vesicle division.

Abstract