Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 12.26 The distribution of single-domain proteins reproduced from Zeldovich et al. 2007b.
The
x
-axis records the Gibbs free energy change,
D
G, accompanying protein folding processes,
and the
y
-axis registers the probability, P(
D
G), of observing free energies of protein folding
Eq.
12.26
is thought to deserve to be referred to as the
Universal Law of Thermal
Excitations (ULTE
).
5. To the best of my knowledge, Eq.
12.26
represents the only mathematical
equation known so far that applies to thermal motions of material objects,
from atoms to molecules to metabolic pathways and to living cells, having
volumes that differ maximally by a factor of about 10
15
. Thus, Eq.
12.26
provides the experimental evidence for the hypothesis that thermal motions are
one of the necessary conditions of life, leading to the following generalization:
No thermal motions, no life. (12.29)
We may refer to Statement 12.28 as the
Heat Principle of Life
(HPL) or the
Principle of the Thermal Requirement of Life
(PTRL). HPL is consistent with
many mechanisms of the origin of life that invoke
thermal cycling
, including the
conformon model of the origin of life (Sect.
13.2
) (Ji 1991) and the RNA-based
6. The first six rows of Table 12.10 demonstrate the quantitative fitting of the
experimental data to the Universal Law of Thermal Excitations (ULTE),
Eq.
12.26
, that have been obtained from the experiments performed on very
different kinds of phenomena, namely, black-body radiation, single-molecule
enzymology, and whole-cell metabolism. Rows 7-10 (with extensive footnotes)
attempt to provide possible mechanistic rationale for the universal application of
ULTE to these three phenomena. Finally Rows 11-13 suggest the new concepts,
principles, and theories that have been suggested by the mathematical fitting of
the experimental data from single-molecule enzymology and whole-cell metab-
olism to the same type of equation that fits the black-body radiation data.
