Abstract
In recent theoretical1 and numerical2 studies of resonant energy transfer into a Davydov soliton on alpha-helix in protein it was assumed in a general way that hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) would ultimately lead to soliton formation, thus:
where SD denotes a Davydov soliton. The details of this reaction will be considered in the present paper. As a starting point for developing these details, we turn to the work of McClare3–7 who has insisted that biological energy must be resonantly transferred into functional protein, but we give careful consideration to arguments by Davydov8 that his soliton cannot directly absorb radiation. To resolve this difficulty we suggest an intermediate state, the proton soliton (Sp) which differs from the Davydov soliton because only the hydrogen bonded proton moves rather than an entire peptide unit. We emphasize that Sp is not a fictional entity: IR absorption by proton solitons in acetanilide has been observed. This is direct radiative transfer from the incident field into an Sp. Finally we posit the relaxation of a photon soliton into a true Davydov soliton.
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References
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© 1984 Plenum Press, New York
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Scott, A.C. (1984). Solitons and Bioenergetics. In: Adey, W.R., Lawrence, A.F. (eds) Nonlinear Electrodynamics in Biological Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2789-9_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2789-9_10
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