Studying autocatalysis — in which molecules catalyse their own formation — might help to explain the emergence of chemical systems that exhibit traits normally associated with biology. When coupled to other processes, autocatalysis can lead to complex systems-level behaviour in apparently simple mixtures. Lipids are an important class of chemicals that appear simple in isolation, but collectively show complex supramolecular and mesoscale dynamics. Here we discuss autocatalytic lipids as a source of extraordinary behaviour such as primitive chemical evolution, chemotaxis, temporally controllable materials and even as supramolecular catalysts for continuous synthesis. We survey the literature since the first examples of lipid autocatalysis and highlight state-of-the-art synthetic systems that emulate life, displaying behaviour such as metabolism and homeostasis, with special consideration for generating structural complexity and out-of-equilibrium models of life. Autocatalytic lipid systems have enormous potential for building complexity from simple components, and connections between physical effects and molecular reactivity are only just beginning to be discovered.

研究自催化（分子催化自身形成）可能有助于解释化学系统的出现，这些化学系统表现出通常与生物学相关的特征。当与其他过程耦合时，自催化可以在看似简单的混合物中导致复杂的系统级行为。脂质是一类重要的化学物质，单独看来很简单，但总体上表现出复杂的超分子和介观动力学。在这里，我们讨论自催化脂质作为非凡行为的来源，例如原始化学演化、趋化性、时间可控材料，甚至作为连续合成的超分子催化剂。我们调查了自脂质自催化的第一个例子以来的文献，并重点介绍了模拟生命的最先进的合成系统，显示新陈代谢和稳态等行为，特别考虑生成结构复杂性和不平衡的生命模型。自催化脂质系统具有从简单组件构建复杂性的巨大潜力，并且物理效应和分子反应性之间的联系才刚刚开始被发现。