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“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

[138–141] as the model of mitochondrial energetics. However, the experi-

mental data concerning the high-resolution X-ray structures of the F 0 F 1 -ATP

synthase [162, 163, 204, 205, 212] and its dynamics [118, 159, 165, 203]

that emerged during the last couple of decades raise important questions

about the validity of the theoretical foundations of Mitchell’s model of oxi-

dative phosphorylation as recently reviewed in [177].

Wallace and his group [201] did not discuss any detailed molecular

mechanisms by which mitochondria may mediate the cellular response to

environmental stresses, except suggesting that the chemiosmotic model of

oxidative phosphorylation (oxphos) proposed by P. Mitchell in 1961

[138–141] may be implicated. According to this model, the phosphoryla-

tion of ADP is coupled to respiration through the transmembrane proton

gradient, ∆p, which consists of the pH gradient (∆pH) and the transmem-

brane electrical potential (∆y). However, the chemiosmotic model does

not provide any enzymologically realistic mechanism for coupling oxida-

tion reaction to the generations of transmembrane ∆p. In contrast, the

conformon model of oxidative phosphorylation [8, 14] can provide a

principled molecular mechanism of coupling the oxidation of substrates to

the phosphorylation of ADP and this mechanism depends on first convert-

ing the chemical energy to the mechanical energy stored in enzymes

called conformons (see Section 3.4). The chemiosmotic and conformon

models of oxidative phosphorylation are briefly compared in Table 3.14.

3.3.1 The Conformon Model of Oxidative Phosphorylation:

Kinematic vs. Dynamic Aspects

The molecular mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation described in

Figure 3.29 is the 1977 version reproduced from [8, 14]. To the best of my

knowledge, it accommodates most, if not all, of the key experimental find-

ings on mitochondria, including the phenomenon of chemiosmosis (see

Steps 1–3) [138–141]. One of the many differences between the conformon

model and the chemiosmotic model of oxidative phosphorylation is that the

former is rooted in the GFCP (Section 2.7). It is interesting to note that

the conformon mechanism does, but the chemiosmotic mechanism does

not, apply to enzymic catalysis (Section 3.2.6) and muscle contraction

(Section 3.4.8), because these two bioenergetics processes occur without

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