Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

Cell Language 187

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

a Just as verbal sentences (as written) are strings of words arranged linearly in the geometric space, so the cell-linguistic (or molecular) sentences are visualized as series of gene expression events arranged in time.b Of all the folds of DNA and polypeptides allowed for by the laws of physics and chemistry, only small subsets have been selected by evolution (thereby giving rise to biological information) to constitute the grammar of cell language.c Sequence-specific conformational strains that carry both free energy (to do work) and genetic information (to control work) have been referred to as

confor

mons

[6, 65]. Conformons are thought to provide immediate driving force (or serves as the force generators) for all molecular processes inside the cell [25,

pp. 231–253; 65].d Space- and time-specific intracellular gradients of ions, biochemicals, and mechanical stresses (e.g., of the cytoskeletal system) that serve as the immediate driving forces for all cell functions on the microscopic level have been referred to as intracellular dissipative structures [15, 16] (see Section 3.2.1).e Also called “conformational” interactions which involve neither breaking nor forming covalent bonds and depend only on the rotation around, or bending of, covalent bonds. Non-covalent interactions implicate smaller energy changes (typically around 1–3 kcal/mol) and those of covalent interactions entail much larger energy changes (10–50 kcal/mol).f Molecular interactions that involve changes in covalent bonds, i.e., changes in valence electronic con

fig

urations around nuclei of atoms in molecules.

g This row is

an addition to the original

table

published in [19, 20]. Intercellular communication through

chemical concentration gradients

(also called

chemical

concentration waves, or chemical standing waves

[26, 27]) is well established in microbiology in the phenomenon of

quarum sensing

[251], whereby bacteria

turn on a set of genes only if there are enough of them around so that they can coordinate their efforts to accomplish a task which is beyond the capability of individual bacteria. The concentration gradients of neurotransmitters established in the synaptic gap between neurons during information flow in neural net

works may be viewed as another example of third articulation in cell language.

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