Model for energy oscillations in cells.
Rapid periodic pulses have been observed in yeast cell walls and these pulsations must be accompanied by coherent oscillations of energy. Such energy oscillations are likely to be a common feature in cells and we explore other consequences, either known or unknown, that may originate from chemical oscillations of small amplitude. We do not consider specific mechanisms for the energy oscillations, but here we accept their existence as a fact following from the yeast experiments. Chemical oscillators are treated as generic quantum oscillators and this model predicts that observed frequencies should have a simple volume-dependence where smaller cells exhibit higher frequencies than their larger counterparts. An extension to multicellular organisms then affords a derivation of the celebrated Kleiber law that evaluates both the numerical coefficient and the 34 exponent of mass. Calculations of activation energies and efficiencies at experimental temperatures follow. Finally, the model is applied to derive established expressions for blood flow and pulse rate. We conclude that the model reflects some common metabolic process insofar as it agrees with diverse quantitative findings while using minimal input data and without introducing free parameters.
Department of Physics, St. John's University, Jamaica, NY 11439, USA. finkelr@stjohns.edu
Robert W
RW
Finkel
D000818:Animals; D048429:Cell Size; D002477:Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000378:metabolism*; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D010507:Periodicity; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism