title: Enzymes, artificial cells and the nature of biological information.
abstract: Recent progresses in enzyme processing within an expanding array of disciplines make the informational analysis of the whole enzymic complexity of the simplest cellular systems appear as a plausible interdisciplinary enterprise. The term 'artificial cell' could be used as a label to encompass these global information processing models of the cell. In a simplified view, three different degrees of enzymic complexity emerge: self-organization, self-reshaping and self-modification. They imply that metabolic enzyme networks endowed with a signaling system and with a 'DNA world', constitute a genuine information processing engine for cellular problem solving, a true molecular 'society'. Philosophically, a new path can be followed to discuss the biological foundations and the paradoxes of the information concept. Other 'informational societies' could be analyzed in a similar way.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002477:Cells; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004798:Enzymes / Q000378:metabolism*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D007256:Information Systems; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological
chemical_list: D004798:Enzymes