Multicellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 549

5. Control parameter designated as cp: The curvature of the wall of the pool,
depending on which the skateboarder moves up and down with different speeds
6. Bifurcation : One becoming two. For example, the trajectory of the skateboarder
at the top of the hill divides into two (if he/she is pushed off) - either toward the
right or the left.
m The study of the effects of drugs on human bodily motions provides insights
into the mechanisms underlying human movement under normal conditions.
n Molecular interactions inside the cell are determined not only by free energy
changes but also by the evolutionary information (Sect. 4.9 ) (Lockless and
Ranganathan 1999) encoded in the structures of interacting partners.
o The cell is the smallest DNA-based molecular computer (Ji 1999a) and the unit
of biological structure and function.
p Many physical principles including the Franck-Condon principle (Sect. 2.2 ),
laws of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics provide guidelines for visualizing
molecular interactions in the cell.
q Life is ultimately driven by chemical reactions and needs the principles of
chemistry and chemical reactions to be understood at the fundamental level.
r For the first time in the history of science, it has become possible, since the mid-
1990s, to observe enzymic reactions and molecular motor actions on the single-
molecule level, providing new insights into the workings of biopolymers, including
dynamic disorder (Row A, Table 11.10 ), molecular memory effects (Row C, Table
11.10 ), and coordinated motions between remote domains.
s Kelso (2008) defines a synergy as
a functional grouping of structural elements (molecules, genes, neurons, muscles, etc.)
which, together with their supporting metabolic networks, are temporarily constrained to
act as a single coherent unit. (15.31)
Thus defined a synergy is more or less synonymous with a SOWAWN machine
(Sect. 2.4 ) and a dissipation (Sect. 3.1.5 ) , both of which being examples of
gnergons (Sect. 2.3.2 ) . Hence synergies may be considered as a member of the
gnergon class.
t Although the concept of the synergy originated in macroscopic science of
human body motions (Bernstein 1967), the concept was subsequently extended to
cellular and molecular levels (reviewed in Kelso 2008, 2009).
u Intracellular dissipative structures were first invoked in the Bhoplator model of
the cell (Ji 1985a, b) as the final form of the expression of genes and generalized in
the form of dissipatons and SOWAWN machines that were suggested to be applica-
ble to other levels of biological organizations (Sects. 9.1 , 10.1 ).
v Conformons were invoked in (Green and Ji 1972a, b) to account for the
molecular mechanism underlying the coupling between respiration and phosphory-
lation reactions in mitochondria (Sects. 8.1 , 8.7 ) and later generalized to formulate
the concept of gnergons in (Ji 1991) which was postulated to apply to all levels of
organization, both biotic and abiotic (Sect. 2.3.2 ) .