Figure 2

Main steps of MCRS model. The folding algorithm (ViennaRNA) finds the secondary structure of lowest energy and the corresponding (Gibbs) free energy of the optimal folded state. Metabolism produces monomers if all the necessary enzymatic activities (E1, E2 and E3 in the figure) are present in the metabolic neighbourhood centred on the focal replicator (metabolic completeness). Replication produces the complementary copy of the focal template in accordance with the Watson-Crick rules of base pairing.