Living Protein Macromolecule as a Non-Equilibrium Meta-Stable System

摘要

In the temperature region where normally living systems operate (ca. 300 exp 0 K), quantum phenomena are dominated by Brownian motions of atoms. However, according to the presented hypothesis a living protein macromolecule as a whole may be in a non-equilibrium state and, even if the temperature of the surroundings is about 300 exp 0 K, the temperature in the active centre of an enzyme maybe close to the absolute zero. Thus, quantum effects are still possible, which may be of importance for understanding the phenomena of enzymatic catalysis. The problem of ''growing old'' of living macromolecules may be also easily explained. (Atomindex citation 13:712114)