Did membrane electrochemistry precede translation?

Cc, King

doi:10.1007/bf01808056

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Model systems using the simple 19 unit oligopeptide Na + -ionopore alamethicin and artificial membranes display action potentials (Mueller & Rudin, 1968). Similar results have been reported for microcells produced by prebiotic techniques containing light irradiated chromophores (Przybylski & Fox, 1986), demonstrating that such effects are fundamental to the quantum architecture of lipid membranes (King, 1990). Four groups of non-polypeptide neurotransmitters: acetyl-choline, catecholamines (epinephrine and dopamine), serotonin and histamine are all amines, the latter three being derived from amino acids tyrosine, tryptophan and histidine by decarboxylation.…”

Section: The Membrane Excitability and Ion Transportsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Despite the complexity of modern electron transport in photosynthesis and respiration, there is considerable evidence that membrane electrochemistry could have arisen before translation could produce coded enzymes. Firstly there is a consistent basis for the existence of many of the components of electron transport during the RNA era, since the nucleotide coenzymes NAD, FAD, a nucleotide-bound Mg and Fe-porphyrin ring similar to B12, a cysteine-bound FeS group (Hall et al, 1974), possibly based on glutathione (γ-glutamyl-cysteinyl-glycine) and quinones provide all the key components of electron transport in an RNA dependent but protein-free form, fig 20(d) (King, 1990). The Fe-S-centre has also been cited a basis for prebiotic metabolism as discussed in section 5.…”

Section: Electron Transportmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Cosmic Symmetry-breaking, Bifurcation, Fractality and Biogenesis

King¹

2007

Neuroquantology

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This paper explores the non-linear quantum foundations of biogenesis in interactive bifurcations between the properties of the elements, sourced in the transitions induced by cosmic symmetry-breaking. The key interactions forming the biogenic pathway are modeled in terms of interactive quantum bifurcations explaining why the bioelements play the interactive role they do and why central biomolecules are cosmologically abundant products of the gas clouds forming young stars. RNA and related nucleotide molecules gain a plausible cosmic status, along with major features of the genetic code, and key features of metabolism, including ion and electron transport, the citric acid cycle and glycolysis.Key Words: cosmology, symmetry-breaking, molecular evolution, chaos, bifurcation, complex system, fractal, biogenesis, astrobiology I IntroductionThe thesis of this paper is that biological structures such as tissues, and organisms are cosmological structures, culminating the interactive phase of symmetry-breaking, as fundamental as stars and galaxies to the cosmic design. This process is described in detail in this paper as a fundamental manifestation of nonlinear quantum science, elaborating the fractal nature of fundamental force interaction, inevitable from the twisted nature of the forces, as they have emerged in our Universe. Symmetry-breaking as elucidated firstly in terms of the weak and electromagnetic forces, fig 5(a) results from evolution of the Universe from a symmetrical state to one in which the Higgs field has become polarized into a state of lower energy, similar to that of a ferromagnetic substance. It is the transition of this underlying parameter that is responsible for the bifurcations we shall consider.Although life is of fragile insignificance among the immensity of cosmic energies, its tiny entropy-reducing photosynthetic energy budget and fragile chemical bonds overwhelmed on the cosmic scale, it is nevertheless the interactive consummation of all the forces of nature acting together in sequence. Biological evolution is a stochastic 2 process combining random mutation and selective advantage, many of whose manifestations are opportunistic, but others the inevitable result of selective forces and environmental bifurcations. Although biological structures are genetically coded in a vast variety of ways by specific nucleic acid sequences, many features of life, 1 Mathematics Department, University of Auckland, New Zealand, E-mail: c.king@auckland.ac.nz 2 Stochastic -a process mediated partly by random factors, such as the drunkard's walk of Brownian motion.

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Section: The Membrane Excitability and Ion Transportsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Electron Transportmentioning

confidence: 94%

Cosmic Symmetry-breaking, Bifurcation, Fractality and Biogenesis

King¹

2007

Neuroquantology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Model systems using the simple 19 unit oligopeptide Na + ionopore alamethicin and artiÞcial membranes display action potentials (Mueller and Rudin 1968). Similar results have been reported for microcells produced by prebiotic techniques containing light irradiated chromophores (Przybylski and Fox 1986), demonstrating that such effects are fundamental to the quantum architecture of lipid membranes (King 1990). Four groups of non-polypeptide neurotransmitters: acetyl-choline, catecholamines (epinephrine and dopamine), serotonin and histamine are all amines, the latter three being derived from amino acids tyrosine, tryptophan and histidine by decarboxylation.…”

Section: : the Cosmic Primality Of Membrane Excitationsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…al. 1974), possibly based on glutathione (g-glutamyl-cysteinyl-glycine) and quinones would provide all the key components of electron transport in an RNA dependent but protein-free form, Þg 17(d) (King 1990). The Fe-S-centre has also been cited a basis for prebiotic metabolism.…”

Section: : the Cosmic Primality Of Membrane Excitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The evidence of the preceding section suggests that chaotic excitability may be one of the founding features of eucaryote cells dating from the purely replicative RNA era, before coded protein translation (King 1978(King , 1990). The Piezo-electric nature and high voltage gradient of the excitable membrane provides an excitable single cell with a generalized quantum sense organ.…”

Section: : Chaotic Excitability and Quantum Sensitivity As A Foundimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantum Cosmology and the Hard Problem of the Conscious Brain

King

The Emerging Physics of Consciousness

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Abstract:The conscious brain poses the most serious unsolved problem for science at the beginning of the third millennium. Not only is the whole basis of subjective conscious experience lacking adequate physical explanation, but the relationship between causality and intentionally willed action remains equally obscure. We explore a model resolving major features of the so-called 'hard problem in consciousness research' through cosmic subject-object complementarity. The model combines transactional quantum theory, with chaotic and fractal dynamics as a basis for a direct relationship between phase coherence in global brain states and anticipatory boundary conditions in quantum systems, complementing these with key features of conscious perception, and intentional will. The aim is to discover unusual physical properties of excitable cells which may form a basis for the evolutionary selection of subjective consciousness, because the physics involved in its emergence permits anticipatory choices which strongly favour survival. 1: Subject-Object Complementarity and the Hard ProblemIn "The Puzzle of Conscious Experience" David Chalmers (1995) summarizes some of the main points of his deÞnition of the now renowned 'hard problem in consciousness research'. He contrasts with the hard problem what he calls the 'easy' problems such as: 'How can a human subject discriminate sensory stimuli and react to them appropriately?' 'How does the brain integrate information from many different sources and use this information to control behaviour?' 'How is it that subjects can verbalize their internal states?' Each of these deal broadly with problems of consciousness, but in ways which could in principle be resolved by straightforward functional explanations.The 'hard problem', by contrast, is the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. This puzzle involves the inner aspects of thought and perception and the way things feel for the subject -all of them subjective experiences known only to the participant. This is much harder to resolve because trying to compare brain states, which are in principle objective and replicable, with subjective experiences, which, however rich for the experiencer, are unavailable to an external observer, pose a severe problem of qualitative difference, which seems almost unbridgeable.Chalmers rejects any simple resort to neuroscience explanations about brain states in solving the hard problem. He notes for example that the 40 Hz oscillations made famous by Crick and Koch (1992) and others, which might provide an explanation for the coherent binding together of different brain regions, for example visual and auditory into one attended perception, may explain how the brain integrates different processing tasks (an easy problem) but don't explain how any of these modes evoke the subjective conscious experiences of vision and sound. Likewise he rejects philosophical explanations such as Daniel Dennett's (1991) 'multiple drafts' theory of consciousness as an explanati...

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Prebiotic syntheses of vitamin coenzymes: I. Cysteamine and 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (coenzyme M)

Miller

Schlesinger

1993

J Mol Evol

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The reaction of NH 3 and SO 2-with ethylene sulfide is shown to be a prebiotic synthesis of cysteamine and 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (coenzyme M). A similar reaction with ethylene imine would give cysteamine and taurine. Ethylene oxide would react with NH3 and N(CH3) 3 to give the phospholipid components ethanolamine and choline. The prebiotic sources of ethylene sulfide, ethylene imine and ethylene oxide are discussed. Cysteamine itself is not a suitable thioester for metabolic processes because of acyl transfer to the amino group, but this can be prevented by using an amide of cysteamine. The use of cysteamine in coenzyme A may have been due to its prebiotic abundance. The facile prebiotic synthesis of both cysteamine and coenzyme M suggests that they were involved in very early metabolic pathways.There has been little work on the prebiotic synthesis of vitamin coenzymes with the exception of the nicotinic acid synthesis from cyanoacetaldehyde and propiolaldehyde (Dowler et al. 1970) and from hydrocarbons and NH3 directly in a spark discharge (Friedmann et al. 1971). Eschenmoser (1988 has shown that a number of the steps in the chemical synthesis of vitamin B]2 proceed easily, although the conditions cannot be considered prebiotic.Offprint requests to: S.L. MillerThe utilization of coenzyme A in the metabolism of most organisms, including several methanogens (Leigh 1983), suggests that it appeared very early in biochemical evolution. The prebiotic formation of thiol esters from ketoaldehydes (Weber, 1981) and the importance of acetate activation suggest that coenzyme A and its precursors may have been important in NH2 O=P-O" O OH I

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Did membrane electrochemistry precede translation?

Cited by 10 publications

References 12 publications

Cosmic Symmetry-breaking, Bifurcation, Fractality and Biogenesis

Cosmic Symmetry-breaking, Bifurcation, Fractality and Biogenesis

Quantum Cosmology and the Hard Problem of the Conscious Brain

Prebiotic syntheses of vitamin coenzymes: I. Cysteamine and 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (coenzyme M)

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