Figure 4.

Kinetic model of a part of the type 3 self-replication The kinetic model contains four components: Plus strand RNA, minus strand RNA, RNA replicase (Qβ replicase) and ribosome. It carries out six reactions encompassing binding and dissociation of the plus strand RNA with RNA replicase and ribosome, translation, and minus strand synthesis. The binding and dissociation reactions are assumed to be in equilibrium. The forward reactions favor translation of RNA replicase (decoding processes). The downward reactions tend toward minus strand synthesis (replication processes). The ternary complex of the plus strand with ribosome and replicase (Rep-Rib-P) is incapable of translation and replication. The kinetic model has four measurable parameters: dissociation constants for ribosome (K_M^rib) and replicase (K_M^rep), and catalytic constants for translation (k_cat^rib) and replication (k_cat^rep).