Figure 3.

Autocatalytic set. An example of an autocatalytic (RAF) set that appeared in a simple polymer model where molecules are “bit string polymers” that can be ligated together into longer ones. Dots represent molecule types (labeled by bit strings); boxes represent reactions (ligations). Solid arrows indicate molecule types going into (reactants) and coming out of (products) a reaction; dashed arrows indicate which molecule types catalyze which reactions. The food set F consists of the monomers and dimers (i.e., bit strings of lengths one and two). Adapted from [30].