title: A quantum biological hypothesis of human secondary dentinogenesis.
abstract: It is hypothesized that human coronal secondary dentin (SD) is a final classical mechanical (CM) response to a chain of prior quantum mechanical (QM) transductions of the information of initial CM occlusal loadings of enamel. Such CM energy is transduced into QM quanta (as protons) that are translocated centripetally via clustered water (CW), (as "proton wires"), that is structurally related to both enamel prism sheath and hydroxyapatite crystal hydration shells. These quanta pass into odontoblastic cell processes (OP), lying within dentinal tubules (DT). OP's contain abundant parallel arrays of cylindrical microtubules (MT). These are the sites of two further CW-related QM events: (i) proton translocation associated with conformal changes of MT tubulin protein dimers; and (ii) coherent energetic oscillations within the CW filling the MT's hollow cores. Finally, these quanta pass into the odontoblastic soma, where QM wave function collapse transduces this information into a final CM state that initiates the processes of SD formation. A critical portion of this hypothesis may be experimentally tested.
authors.affiliation: College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA. mlm7@columbia.edu
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Moss
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moss-Salentijn
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hasselgren
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ling
mesh_terms: D003809:Dentin, Secondary / Q000502:physiology*; D003810:Dentinogenesis / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008870:Microtubules / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D011789:Quantum Theory