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Quantum entanglement in photoactive prebiotic systems

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Systems and Synthetic Biology

Abstract

This paper contains the review of quantum entanglement investigations in living systems, and in the quantum mechanically modelled photoactive prebiotic kernel systems. We define our modelled self-assembled supramolecular photoactive centres, composed of one or more sensitizer molecules, precursors of fatty acids and a number of water molecules, as a photoactive prebiotic kernel systems. We propose that life first emerged in the form of such minimal photoactive prebiotic kernel systems and later in the process of evolution these photoactive prebiotic kernel systems would have produced fatty acids and covered themselves with fatty acid envelopes to become the minimal cells of the Fatty Acid World. Specifically, we model self-assembling of photoactive prebiotic systems with observed quantum entanglement phenomena. We address the idea that quantum entanglement was important in the first stages of origins of life and evolution of the biospheres because simultaneously excite two prebiotic kernels in the system by appearance of two additional quantum entangled excited states, leading to faster growth and self-replication of minimal living cells. The quantum mechanically modelled possibility of synthesizing artificial self-reproducing quantum entangled prebiotic kernel systems and minimal cells also impacts the possibility of the most probable path of emergence of protocells on the Earth or elsewhere. We also examine the quantum entangled logic gates discovered in the modelled systems composed of two prebiotic kernels. Such logic gates may have application in the destruction of cancer cells or becoming building blocks of new forms of artificial cells including magnetically active ones.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to Dr. Jonas Baltrusaitis who was a member of the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical/Biochemical Engineering, EMRB 75 University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA until July 2012 and grateful for the use of the computing facilities at the University of Iowa for the quantum chemical calculations of photosynthetic prebiotic kernels (4) and (7) presented in this review. The quantum mechanical investigations of separate molecules and photoactive prebiotic kernels as well as the preliminary calculations of systems of prebiotic kernels presented in this article were performed on the Linux servers cluster of Vilnius University Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy purchased using funds of European Union FP6 project “Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution”.

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  1. Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy, Vilnius University, A. Gostauto 12, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Arvydas Tamulis

  2. Department of Radiation Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, The Norwegian Radium Hospital, Ullernchausseen 70, Oslo, Norway

    Mantas Grigalavicius

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  1. Arvydas Tamulis
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  2. Mantas Grigalavicius
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Correspondence to Arvydas Tamulis.

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Tamulis, A., Grigalavicius, M. Quantum entanglement in photoactive prebiotic systems. Syst Synth Biol 8, 117–140 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11693-014-9138-6

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