Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

The Bhopalator 59

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

opening and closing of voltage-gated ion channels driven by neuronal

electrical membrane potential [142].

The concept of the electromechanochemical (EMC) potential energy

was invoked for the first time in 1972 [143–145] in an attempt to explain the

molecular mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria. Due to

the conformational deformability of enzymes, it is inevitable that enzymes

undergo structural (i.e., conformational) deformations (thus storing energy)

when they catalyze chemical reactions that involve charge separation such

as the oxidation of NADH to form NAD+ (see step 1 in Figure 3.29 or the a

to c transition in Figure 3.30a). When charge separation occurs in the inte-

rior or on the surface of an enzyme, two events inevitably follow: (i) confor-

mational (also called mechanical) change in local polypeptide chains due to

the electrical interactions between the separated charges and the electrical

charges on amino acid residues or the dipole moment of the peptide bonds

and (ii) the electronic density changes (also called chemical changes) on

ionized groups, leading to pKa changes as found in the Bohr effect in hemo-

globin [146–148]. Thus, observations (i) and (ii) support the notion of EMC

energy transduction. These three forms of energies are characterized by dif-

ferent distance dependencies as summarized in Table 3.2.

The term EMC potential energy appears in both Junge’s [150, p. 5]

and Nath’s papers [151, p. 307], indicating that the EMC concept intro-

duced in [143–145] is accepted by some bioenergeticists.

The EMC energy transduction that is thought to accompany oxidative

phosphorylation is depicted in Figures 3.4–3.6. The structural unit that

Table 3.2 Three kinds of potential energies in enzymes.

Energy Molecular Interactions Distance (R) Dependencya

Electrostatic Charge–charge

Charge–dipole

Charge-induced dipole

1/R

1/R^2

1/R^4

Mechanical Dipole–dipole

Dipole-induced dipole

London dispersion

1/R^2

1/R^6

1/R^6

Chemical (or electronic) Valence orbital overlap 1/R^6 –1/R^12

Note: aData reproduced from [149].

Source: Reproduced from [12].

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