Abstract
A new model of mitochondrial structure and function is proposed on the basis of four fundamental assumptions: (a) electrons and protons are separated in the electron transfer complexes; (b) the ATPase undergoes conformational state-transitions induced by an electric field; (c) energy is transferred by an electric field effect; and (d) a conformationally strained protein system can be relaxed via a bond-forming chemical reaction. The model can explain all of the mitochondrial coupled processes and, in addition, it provides a reasonable rationalization of the correlation between mitochondrial structure and function.
Keywords: energy transduction, electric field effect, bimodal octet principle, oxidative phosphorylation, active transport
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Selected References
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