RNA World Modeling: A Comparison of Two Complementary Approaches

Abstract

The origin of life remains one of the major scientific questions in modern biology. Among many hypotheses aiming to explain how life on Earth started, RNA world is probably the most extensively studied. It assumes that, in the very beginning, RNA molecules served as both enzymes and as genetic information carriers. However, even if this is true, there are many questions that still need to be answered—for example, whether the population of such molecules could achieve stability and retain genetic information for many generations, which is necessary in order for evolution to start. In this paper, we try to answer this question based on the parasite–replicase model (RP model), which divides RNA molecules into enzymes (RNA replicases) capable of catalyzing replication and parasites that do not possess replicase activity but can be replicated by RNA replicases. We describe the aforementioned system using partial differential equations and, based on the analysis of the simulation, surmise general rules governing its evolution. We also compare this approach with one where the RP system is modeled and implemented using a multi-agent modeling technique. We show that approaching the description and analysis of the RP system from different perspectives (microscopic represented by MAS and macroscopic depicted by PDE) provides consistent results. Therefore, applying MAS does not lead to erroneous results and allows us to study more complex situations where many cases are concerned, which would not be possible through the PDE model.