Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
including the nucleus, to constantly monitor their energy needs so that mitochondria
can provide ATP
whenever
and
wherever
it is needed (Ji 1979). To accomplish
such a cell-wide function of timely supplying ATP to endergonic (free energy-
consuming) processes in the cell, it was postulated that mitochondria utilize the
proton-motive
force (which is
global
in its influence) of Mitchell (1961, 1968)
as the means for communicating with the rest of the cell and utilize
conformons
(which is
local
in its influence) for the purpose of synthesizing ATP (see
Deconstructing the Chemiosmotic Hypothesis in Sect.
11.6
).
The cell is composed of three categories of microscopic objects - (1)
macromolecules (e.g., DNA, RNA, proteins), (2) what may be conveniently
referred to as
micromolecules
(e.g., glucose, NADH, FAD, ATP, pyruvate) in
contrast to
macromolecules
, and (3) metal ions (e.g., K
+
,Na
+
,Ca
++
). These
components are not distributed randomly inside the cell but organized into what
may be called the
unit cell volume
(UCV) in analogy to the unit volume of the
phase
space
in statistical mechanics (Sect.
4.9
), which in turn may be organized into
familiar subcellular compartments. If the linear dimension of UCV is about 10
˚
(or 10
9
m), there may be (10
5
m/10
9
m)
3
10
12
UCVs in a typical cell with a
diameter of 10
5
m. If one CUV stores at least
n
bits of information, the minimum
possible algorithmic information content of the cell would be
n
¼
10
12
bits. If
n
is
comparable to the number of bits of the algorithmic information stored in the
hydrogen atom, the cell would store 10
12
times the amount of the algorithmic
information content of the hydrogen atom. It took physicists several decades to
elucidate the structure of the hydrogen atom, publishing at least 100 fundamental
papers, including those establishing the quantum theory of the atom. Based on this
comparison, it may be predicted that
1. It will take 10
14
fundamental papers to completely elucidate the structure and
function of the living cell, a number equivalent to approximately 10,000 papers
written for every person alive on the this planet at present.
2. It may be beyond the human capacity to completely characterize the structure
and function of the living cell, and
3. Despite the avalanche of experimental data being published in life sciences in
general and cell biology in particular in recent decades, post-Internet,
Homo
sapiens
may be glimpsing only the tip of the biological iceberg.
For convenience, item (2) may be referred to as the
Infinite Complexity Postulate
of the Living Cell
(ICPLC).
17.2 The Dynamic Complexity of the Living Cell
There are structures in the cell that disappear within the time window (TW) of
seconds to minutes upon blocking the free energy supply to the cell, for example,
membrane potentials, the concentration gradients of many metabolites in the cell
including ATP, RNA, and glucose. That is, the living cell
contains dissipatons
.
