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Molecular Theory of the Living Cell pp 231–253Cite as

The Conformon

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Abstract

Cells are examples of self-organizing chemical reaction–diffusion systems that have evolved to perform (or been selected because of their ability to perform) myriads of goal-directed (purposive or teleonomic) motions in space and time. The goal-directed molecular motions inside the living cell are carried out by biopolymers acting as molecular machines (Alberts et al. 1998), and each molecular machine is postulated to be driven by conformons. Conformons, sequence-specific mechanical strains of biopolymers, can be generated from the binding energy of ligands as in the Circe effect of Jencks (1975) or from the free energy of chemical reactions as in stress-induced duplex destabilizations (SIDDSs) in supercoiled DNA described by Benham (1992, 1996a, b; Benham and Bi 2004). The living cell can be represented as a system of molecular machines (e.g., myosin, kinesin, dynein, dynamin, RNA polymerase, DNA polymerase, topoisomerases, and ion pumps) that are organized in space and time in various combinations in order to carry out cell functions demanded by a given environmental condition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Pharmacol. & Toxicol. Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Sungchul Ji PhD

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Ji, S. (2012). The Conformon. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2152-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2152-8_8

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