New insights into the physical processes that underpin cell division and the emergence of different cellular and multicellular structures

Publication date: Available online 25 April 2019Source: Progress in Biophysics and Molecular BiologyAuthor(s): Philip Turner, Laurent Nottale, John Zhao, Edouard PesquetAbstractDespite decades of focused research, a detailed understanding of the fundamental physical processes that underpin biological systems (structures and processes) remains an open challenge. Within the present paper we report on biomimetic studies, which offer new insights into the process of cell division and the emergence of different cellular and multicellular structures.Experimental studies specifically investigated the impact of including different concentrations of charged bio-molecules (cytokinin and gibberellic acid) on the growth of BaCO3−SiO2 based structures. Results highlighted the role of charge density on the emergence of long-range order, underpinned by a negentropic process. This included the growth of synthetic cell-like structures, with the intrinsic capacity to divide and change morphology at cellular and multicellular scales.Detailed study of dividing structures supports a hypothesis that cell division is dependent on the establishment of a charge-induced macroscopic quantum potential and cell-scale quantum coherence, which allows a description in terms of a macroscopic Schrödinger-like equation, based on a constant different from the Planck constant. Whilst the system does not reflect full correspondence with standard quantum mechanics, many of the phenomena that we typically associ...
Source: Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology - Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research