
The Matter World Hypothesis (MWH) posits that synergistic interactions among RNA, peptides, lipids, and catalytic extras drove the emergence of life in prebiotic environments. This study presents an Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) framework simulating 1,000 minimal protocells, each comprising 50-nucleotide (nt) RNA, short peptides (5–10 amino acids), lipid vesicles, montmorillonite, and Zn²⁺, over 1,000,000 steps (~1,000 division events) across wet-dry cycles, ice veins, and hydrothermal vents, with 2,500 replicates per environment. A codon-specific proto-translation module simulates explicit codon-anticodon pairing with 1–5% mistranslation probabilities per codon, catalyzed by an RNA aptamer rather than a ribosome to minimize complexity. The ABM reveals 60 ± 7% lineage divergence, allele fixation rates (0.06–0.10 per 10,000 steps), and proto-translation in 50 ± 8% of protocells, with robust statistical power (95% CI: ±0.8–1.5%) and moderate variance (±2.5–5.0% SD). Reactive oxygen species (ROS) spikes (5–15 events/100k steps) increase mutation and mistranslation rates by 5–10%, with robustness confirmed via bootstrap and Lévy flight analyses. This minimal protocell demonstrates self-replication, metabolism, homeostasis, and environmental responsiveness, offering insights into the simplest systems capable of life-like behaviors with implications for abiogenesis, astrobiology, and synthetic biology.All findings in this study are derived from advanced simulations and thus require empirical validation before drawing definitive conclusions.
Agent-Based Modeling, Minimal Protocell, Matter World Hypothesis, Codon-Specific Proto-Translation, 50-Nucleotide RNA, Abiogenesis, Prebiotic Chemistry
Agent-Based Modeling, Minimal Protocell, Matter World Hypothesis, Codon-Specific Proto-Translation, 50-Nucleotide RNA, Abiogenesis, Prebiotic Chemistry
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