HEALTH WARNING
PROFESSIONAL BIOCHEMIST COMMENTS ON KEN'S ATP SYNTHASE POST.
Hi Ken and all,
KEN>
<<<Go to "foresight.org" and look at some of the work in nanotechnology
that is being done lately. Look at the enzyme motors that apparently
work exactly like electrical motors to manipulate and fabricate other
atoms and molecules. [Ken's evolution question snipped and moved to
end]. The recent discussions are getting pretty boring to me.
ATP synthase resembles a lumpy orange spinning on a long axle. The
"orange" has six segments - three alpha subunits, and three beta
subunits....>>>
Ken, I feel almost rude jumping in here after being a player in the
"boring" discussions, but you've introduced a topic that I REALLY know
about - it's something I teach at University level. I agree that the ATP
synthase represents a really elegant piece of natural engineering, and
now we know how the 3-fold symmetry of the structure fits with a 3-step
function. The research on this earned 1997 Nobel prizes for Walker (the
structure), Skou and Boyer (the function) - there's a pretty good web
page of the details at the Nobel organization's website -
http://www.nobel.se/announcement-97/chemistry97.html
KEN
<<<One of the intriguing facts about this sophisticated enzyme is that
it is found in every kind of cell, from bacteria to plants and animals.
That presumably means that it is a very ancient biological device that
evolved with the early bacteria or even before.>>>
For those who know some biology, it is interesting to note the ubiquity
the ATPase. Common bacteria (the Eubacteria) all contain this "F-type"
ATP synthase. Eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi, yeasts) contain
organelles (mitochondria and chloroplasts) which are now considered to
originate as "endosymbiotic" bacteria, so it's no big deal that they
have the F-type ATPase in these organelles. However, some eukaryotes
have additional vacuolar "V-type" ATPases which run in reverse, i.e.
using ATP hydrolysis to push protons into a cell vacuole. Finally, there
is another class of bacteria called the Archaebacteria which also have
their ATPsynthases. Gene sequences show that all three types of ATPase
are related, i.e. surely derive from a common ancestor. The amazing
thing is that there is a huge divergence between the two bacterial
kingdoms (Eubacteria vs. Archaebacteria) which is hard to explain to the
layman - it is certainly bigger than the divergence between animals and
plants and is assumed to have occurred very early in evolution. The
funny part is that the V-type ATPase appears more related to the
archebacterial enzyme than the eubacterial enzyme.
KEN>
It seems surprising that the creatures of that era already had the use
of such an elegant machine.
>>>
We are indeed talking about the dawn of life - well over 3,000,000,000
years ago. We really can't say how the ATPase evolved, but the earth was
born a few thousand million years before that even, so the elegant
machine had plenty of time to evolve.
I don't have a problem with ATPase, body and brain all emerging by the
same evolutionary processes. I consider Charles Darwin a true genius who
essentially threw out the concept of a causal, directed creation of life
and realized that random drifts (i.e. absence of cause) and natural
selection could also allow evolution of self-preserving complex forms.
For those in computing, the "genetic algorithm" for problem solving
validates Darwin's paradigm.
Having said all this, I must state that this is all a viewpoint - I find
it to be a useful way of understanding life and nature. I have no basis
to claim it as the absolute truth.
KEN>... [snipped from earlier]
>Do you suppose that the body was built by evolution and that the brain
was superimposed on the body by >God?
I also mentioned God (God's Will) in recent posts. To me, the drift of
evolution *IS* God's will, so Ken's question implying God vs. evolution
is a non-issue.
Jonathan
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