The Living Cell - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 264

supposition that life is driven by gnergy , the complementary union of information
and energy (Sect. 2.3.2 ) . The name Bhopalator reflects the fact that the cell model
was born as a result of the two lectures that I presented at the international
conference entitled The Seminar on the Living State , held in Bhopal, India in
1983. The suffix, “-ator” indicates that the model is based on the postulate that
the cell is a self-organizing chemical reaction-diffusion systems (i.e., a dissipative
structure or a dissipaton) (Sects. 3.1 and 9.1 ).
The Bhopalator model of the cell consists of a set of arrows (i.e., directed edges )
and nodes enclosed within a three-dimensional volume delimited by the cell
membrane (Fig. 2.11 ) . The system is thermodynamically open so that it can
exchange matter and energy with its environment (see Arrows 19 and 20) (Sect.
2.1.1 ) . The arrows indicate the directional flows of information driven by free
energy dissipation. The solid arrows indicate the flow of information from DNA
to the final form of gene expression postulated to be the dissipative structures
theoretically investigated by Prigogine and his schools (Babloyantz 1986;
Kondepudi and Prigogine 1998; Kondepudi 2008). These dissipative structures
are in turn assumed to exert feedback controls over all the solid arrows, as indicated
by the dotted arrows (Fig. 2.11 ).
One of the most distinct features of the Bhopalator is the role assigned to
dissipative structures of Prigogine . Thus, IDSs (intracellular dissipative structures)
(Sect. 3.1.2 ) are assumed to be both the final form of gene expression and the
immediate or proximal causes for cell functions. Another novel feature of the
Bhopalator model of the cell is the assertion that all nonrandom (or goal-directed)
motions of biopolymers and associated small molecules in the cell are driven by
conformons , the packets of mechanical energy and control information embedded
in biopolymers (Chap. 8 ) . Although there was no direct empirical evidence for IDSs
or conformons when the Bhopalator was first proposed in 1983, the experimental
data supporting these molecular entities emerged in the mid-1980s and throughout
the 1990s, as reviewed in Sects. 8.3 and 9.1 .
An updated version of the Bhopalator is presented in Fig. 10.1 using the
formalism of a bionetwork (Sect. 2.4 ). All of the 12 edges or steps shown in this
figure are present in the original version of the Bhopalator (Fig. 2.11 ), except Steps
8, 9, 10, and 11. The unidirectional arrows indicate the direction of information
flow driven by appropriate conformons (i.e., packets of gnergy), which are not
shown explicitly. The symbol, A

B, can be interpreted to mean that A affects ,
influences , causes, or gives rise to B. IDSs are any structures inside the cell that
require the dissipation of free energy into heat to be maintained and hence disappear
upon the cessation of free energy supply to the cell (e.g., membrane potential, RNA
levels, ATP levels).
In Fig. 10.1 , Steps 1, 2, and 3 represent the familiar processes - transcription ,
translation, and catalysis , respectively. Steps 4, 5, and 6 indicate the feedback
controls exerted by IDSs on DNA, RNA, and proteins. Step 12 implies that the
cell affects its environment through IDSs; that is, IDSs are the immediate causes of
cell functions (Sect. 10.2 ), although cell functions do implicate, in addition, DNA,
RNA, proteins, as symbolized by the large square bracket. Steps 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11,

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