Hypercycle

A hypercycle is a cyclic sequence of self-reproducing individual cycles. These individual cycles consist of RNA and protein molecules, which depend on each other through feedback and collaborate. The hypercycles described by Manfred Eigen and Winkler Ruthild be considered as possible explanation for the prebiotic formation of replicative chemical systems. You are in the transition region between chemical and biological evolution.

In hypercycles RNA molecules catalyze the formation of such proteins, in turn, catalyze the formation of the RNA molecules. Also hypercycles subject to evolution: mutations in the base sequence of RNA lead to molecules with different catalytic properties and thus to different replication rates. An evolutionary advantage, those chemical systems over others, therefore multiply faster in the competition for the chemical building blocks of the " primordial soup ", which have a high rate of propagation:

Hypercycles already exhibit characteristics of living beings: self- reproduction, disclosure of information and metabolism. Mathematically, this theory is described in the theory of quasispecies.