Autocatalytic sets were originally and most concretely defined in terms of molecular entities, but have more recently been metaphorically extended to the study of systems in sociology, ecology, and economics.
After the discovery of the double helix, the central dogma of molecular biology was formulated, which is that DNA is transcribed to RNA which is translated to protein.
The molecular structure of DNA and RNA, as well as the metabolism that maintains their reproduction, are believed to be too complex to have arisen spontaneously in one step from a soup of chemistry.
Most of these models which have emerged from the studies of complex systems predict that life arose not from a molecule with any particular trait (such as self-replicating RNA) but from an autocatalytic set.
The first empirical support came from Lincoln and Joyce, who obtained autocatalytic sets in which "two [RNA] enzymes catalyze each other’s synthesis from a total of four component substrates.
These theoretical results make autocatalytic sets attractive for scientific explanation of the very early origin of life.
Contrary to the above definition, which applies to the field of Artificial chemistry, no agreed-upon notion of autocatalytic sets exists today.
From both a structural and a natural historical point of view, one can identify the ACS as seized in the formal definition the more original concept, while in the second, the reflection of the system in itself is already brought to an explicit presentation, since catalysts represent the reaction induced by them.
But the concept of autocatalytic sets is really more general and in practical use in various technical areas, e.g. where self-sustaining tool chains are handled.
Autocatalytic sets constitute just one of several current theories of life, including the chemoton[5] of Tibor Gánti, the hypercycle of Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster,[6][7] [8] the (M,R) systems[9][10] of Robert Rosen, and the autopoiesis (or self-building)[11] of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.
[18] Gill and Forterre expressed the essential point as follows:[19] LUCA should not be confused with the first cell, but was the product of a long period of evolution.