| Preface | |
| Complexity and the structure of the living cell | |
| What do we mean by complexity? | |
| The living cell | |
| The living cell is a complex system | |
| Elementary life processes viewed as dynamic physicochemical events | |
| General phenomenological description of dynamic processes | |
| Enzyme reactions under simple standard conditions | |
| Does the complexity of the living cell affect the dynamics of enzyme-catalysed reactions? | |
| Coupling between chemical and (or) vectorial processes as a basis for signal perception and transduction | |
| Coupling between reagent diffusion and bound enzyme reaction rate as an elementary sensing device | |
| Sensitivity amplification for coupled biochemical systems | |
| Bacterial chemotaxis as an example of cell signaling | |
| General features of a signaling process | |
| Control of metabolic networks under steady state conditions | |
| Metabolic control theory | |
| Biochemical systems theory | |
| An example of the application of Metabolic control theory to a biological problem | |
| Compartmentalization of the living cell and thermodynamics of energy conversion | |
| Thermodynamic properties of compartmentalized systems | |
| Brief description of molecular events involved in energy coupling | |
| Compartmentalization of the living cell and the kinetics and thermodynamics of coupled scalar and vectorial processes | |
| Molecular crowding, transfer of information and channeling of molecules within supramolecular edifices | |
| Molecular crowding | |
| Statistical mechanics of ligand binding to supramolecular edifices | |
| Statistical mechanics and catalysis within supramolecular edificis | |
| Statistical mechanics of imprinting effects | |
| Statistical mechanics of instruction transfer within supramolecular edifices | |
| Instruction, chaperones and prion proteins | |
| Multienzyme complexes, instruction and energy transfer | |
| Proteins at the lipid-water interface and instruction transfer to proteins | |
| Information transfer between proteins and enzyme regulation | |
| Channeling of reaction intermediates within multienzyme complexes | |
| The different types of communication within multienzyme complexes | |
| Cell complexity, electrostatic partitioning of ions and bound enzyme reactions | |
| Enzyme reactions in a homogeneous polyelectrolyte matrix | |
| Enzyme reactions in a complex heterogeneous polyelectrolyte matrix | |
| An example of enzyme behaviour in a complex biological system: the kinetics of an enzyme bound to plant cell walls | |
| Sensing, memorizing and conducting signals by polyelectrolyte-bound enzymes | |
| Complexity of biological polyelectrolytes and the emergence of novel functions | |
| Dynamics and mobility of supramolecular edifices in the living cell | |
| Tubulin, actin and their supramolecular edifices | |
| Dynamics and thermodynamics of tubulin and actin polymerization | |
| Molecular motors and the statistical physics of muscle contraction | |
| Dynamic state of supramolecular edifices in the living cell | |
| Temporal organization of metabolic cycles and structural complexity: oscillations and chaos | |
| Brief overview of the temporal organization of some metabolic processes | |
| Minimum conditions required for the emergence of oscillations in a model metabolic cycle | |
| Emergence of a temporal organization generated by compartmentalization and electric repulsion effects | |
| Periodic and aperiodic oscillations generated by the complexity of the supramolecular edifices of the cell | |
| ATP synthesis and active transport induced by periodic electric fields | |
| Some functional advantages of complexity | |
| Spatio-temporal organization during the early stages of development | |
| Turing patterns | |
| Positional information and the existence of gradients of morphogens during early development | |
| The emergence of patterns and forms | |
| Pattern formation and complexity | |
| Evolution towards complexity | |
| The need for a membrane | |
| How to improve the efficiency of metabolic networks in homogeneous phase | |
| The emergence and functional advantages of compartmentalization | |
| Evolution of molecular crowding and the different types of information transfer | |
| Control of phenotypic expression by a negatively charged cell wall | |
| Evolution of the cell structures associated with motion | |
| The emergence of temporal organization as a consequence of supramolecular complexity | |
| The emergence of multicellular organisms | |
| Is natural selection the only driving force of evolution? | |
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