title: Membrane transporters as machines: degenerate singularities as a requirement for function.
abstract: It is suggested that Membrane Transporter functionality is based on low energy paths between proteins of different conformations. A simple extension of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is used to reduce the protein structure problem to one of the kinematics of engineering mechanisms. Such low energy paths between conformations with the same handedness imply the existence of degenerate singularities in the engineering mechanism. The requirement for degeneracy leads to a number of conjectures. These include the structure and function of chaperones for constructing such proteins and the thermodynamic properties of membrane transporters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering Sciences, Brasenose College, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 4AJ, UK. ronald.daniel@engineering-science.oxford.ac.uk
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: C A R
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Boyd
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport / Q000502:physiology; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D018832:Molecular Chaperones; D011487:Protein Conformation; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D018832:Molecular Chaperones