Physical principles in chemoreception
The present monograph is devoted to a discussion of the physical principles which are involved in various processes of chemoreception. In order to set the state for the models and calculations of the following chapters, there are discussed (i) the main protagonists in chemoreception; (ii) important examples of chemoreception and problems in the theory of chemoreception; (iii) chemoreception as a special example of optimal use of physical laws by living things, which has been noticed by many authors. These general considerations represent the contents of Chapter I. In Chapters II--V there are developed the theory of one-stage chemoreception, in which a ligand can only be absorbed by a cell, by a direct hit on the binding site of the receptor molecule. Chapter II includes the translational and rotational diffusion coefficients, general comments on diffusion and the effects of excluded volume on the thermal equilibrium distribution of ligands. In Chapter III the calculation of the ligand current for the various geometries of the binding site is presented. Once the ligand current into a single receptor is known, the next task is to develop a general theory for the rate of absorbtion of ligands by a cell of any shape that carries a large number of identical receptors in its cell membrane. This theory of one-stage chemoreception is the subject of Chapter IV. After Chapter V (Ligand capture by a system of many cells), VI (Diffusion and flow in the cell), VII (Excluded volume effects in the diffusion of membrane proteins), in Chapter VIII the theory of chemoreception is extended to incorporate two-stage capture processes in which the ligand is first incorporated in the cell membrane and then diffuses laterally in the plane of the membrane till it hits a binding site. Actually, two- stage chemoreception is only one of a variety of processes which occur at the surface of the living cell and in which the lateral translational or rotational diffusion of proteins plays an essential role. The last chapter of the book, Chapter IX, refers to chemoreception by a swimming cell.
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