Springer Synergetics

1. Introduction.- 1.1 What is Biophysics?.- 1.2 Cell Components and Their Specific Features.- 1.3 The Aim of the Book.- 2. The Ordering of Biological Structures.- 2.1 Are They so Ordered in Reality?.- 2.2 Entropy and Information.- 2.3 What is the Cost of Biological Ordering?.- 2.4 The Meaning of Biological Ordering.- 2.5 The Necessity of Mechanical Details.- 2.6 The Problems.- 3. Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and Biological Physics.- 3.1 Open Systems.- 3.2 Phenomenological Relations.- 3.3 Stationary States.- 3.4 Dissipative Structures.- 3.5 Oscillatory Phenomena in Chemistry and Biochemistry.- 3.6 The Problems.- 4. On the Statistical Physics of Biopolymers.- 4.1 Where does Mechanics Begin?.- 4.2 Statistical Physics of a Linear Homopolymer.- 4.3 On the Statistical Nonequilibrium of Biopolymer Structures at Different Levels of Organi zation.- 4.4 On Certain Properties of Biopolymer Structures that Can Be Understood in Terms of Their Statistical-Physical Description.- 5. Conformational and Configurational Changes of Biopolymers.- 5.1 Introductory Remarks.- 5.2 Biopolymer Denaturation.- 5.2.1 Acid Dermturation of Ferri hemoglobin.- 5.2.2 Thermal Denaturati on of Proteins.- 5.2.3 On the Kinetics of Denaturation Processes.- 5.3 On the Difference Between Activation Energy and Activation Enthalpy.- 5.4 Some Protein Reactions.- 5.4.1 Hemoglobin Oxygenation.- 5.4.2 The Oxidation and Reduction of Cytochrome ?.- 5.5 On the Compensation Effect.- 5.6 On the Validity of the Van't Hoff and Arrhenius Equations and of the Activated State Theory for Biopolymer Reactions.- 5.7 On Spontaneous Conformational Oscillations of Protein Macromolecules.- 5.8 Conclusions.- 6. The Physics of Enzyme Catalysis.- 6.1 Background.- 6.2 Existing Interpretations of Enzymatic Activity.- 6.2.1 Enzyme Increases the Activation Entropy.- 6.2.2 Enzyme Lowers the Activation Energy.- 6.2.3 Enzyme Heightens the Probability of Useful Energy Fluctuation.- 6.2.4 Energy Recuperation.- 6.3 Conformational Changes as Necessary Steps of Enzymatic Processes.- 6.4 The Effect of Temperature on Enzymes and on the Activation Parameters of Enzyme Reactions.- 6.5 The Physics of Elementary Steps of Enzyme Catalysis [6.69,72,79,80].- 6.6 Dynamic Model for Aspartate-Amino-Transferase.- 6.7 Conclusions.- 7. The Physics of Electron Transfer in Biological Systems.- 7.1 Overview.- 7.2 Free Radicals and Radical Ions in Biochemical Reactions.- 7.3 Electron Transport Chains (ETC) in Mitochondrial and Chloroplast Membranes.- 7.4 Electron Transfer Reactions and Semiconduction in Biological Systems.- 7.5 On the Tunnelling Mechanisms of Electron Transfer Between the ETC Components.- 8. The Physics of Intracellular Energy Transformation and Accumulation.- 8.1 Overview.- 8.2 The ATP Problem.- 8.3 Substrate Phosphorylation.- 8.4 Membrane Phosphorylation: Thermodynamic Aspects.- 8.5 Membrane Phosphorylation: Existing Theories.- 8.6 Some Physical Aspects of Intracellular Energy Transformation as a Relaxation Process.- 9. Conclusion.- References.