Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
As evident in Steps 1-3 above, the coupling between LD
1
and LD
2
across an
arbitrary distance symbolized by the bar, -- does not depend on any action at a
distance but only on (1) local actions of thermal fluctuations of LD
1
and LD
2
and (2)
the synchrony of the relaxations of LD
1
and LD
2
to LD
1
0
and LD
2
0
and the process of
the rigidification of the connector, namely, ~
!
-- . If this mechanism proves to be
correct, the main principles underlying the
theory of global dissipations
as applied to
cell metabolism may turn out to be the
Principle of Slow and Fast Processes
or
Based on the fact that both the single-molecule enzymic data (reflecting the
activities of conformons, a member of LDs) and the genome-wide RNA trajectories
of budding yeast undergoing glucose-galactose shift (reflecting GDs) obey
the blackbody radiation law-like equation, Eq.
12.26
, it may be asserted that (see
Row 11, Table 12.10):
Conformons and intracellular dissipatons are to biology what photons and quantum objects
are to physics
.
(12.37)
Statement (12.37) is consistent with the atom-cell isomorphism postulate (ACIP)
described in Fig. 10.4.
12.13 The
Cell Force
: Microarray Evidence
The concept of the
cell force
was invoked in Ji (1991, pp. 8, 95-118) to account for
the
functional
stability of the living cell, just as physicists were led to invoke the
concept of the
strong force
to account for the
structural
stability of the nucleus of
the atom:
'Cell force' is a hypothetical force thought to act within the living cell to hold together
biopolymers in functional states. The cell force is postulated to be mediated by a combina-
tion of conformons and IDSs called 'cytons' ...,just as the strong force is mediated by
gluons.
...
(Ji 1991, p. 8; see also Appendix K)
(12.37a)
...
It is postulated that there exists a new kind of force in nature called the
cell force
that
'holds' together h-particles (i.e., biopolymers; h = heavy, my addition) and l-particles (i.e.,
small-molecular weight chemicals; l = light, my addition) of the cell together in the living
state against environmental perturbations, just as the
strong force
holds nucleons together
in atomic nuclei against electrostatic repulsions.
...
(12.37b)
The purpose of this section is to present the first experimental evidence
supporting the cell force concept. The evidence was derived from the observation
that the whole-cell RNA metabolic data measured with microarrays from budding
yeast (Garcia-Martinez et al. 2004) fit the blackbody radiation-like equation (BRE)
discussed in Sect. 12.12. When I formulated the cell force concept over two decades
ago (Ji 1991 and Appendix K), I did not know then that one day I might be
analyzing experimental data shedding light on the existence of the
cell force
in
