Consilient mechanisms electron transfer

Consilient Mechanisms for Electron Transfer/Proton Transport Reside in the Movement of the Rieske Iron Protein FeS Center... 

The focus has been on both aspects of the consilient mechanism (hydrophobic association/ dissociation and elastic force development/ relaxation) involved in the unique domain movement for electron transfer within Complex III. In what follows, the same aspect of hydrophobic association/dissociation of the consilient mechanism is proposed for facilitating proton gating. 

Our conclusion is that dissociation of the RIP from the Q site in a single step represents a unique intersection of electron transfer and proton translocation that simultaneously employs both the hydrophobic and elastic consilient mechanisms. 

The concept of two distinct but interlinked mechanical processes, expanded here as the coupling of hydrophobic and elastic consilient mechanisms, entered the public domain in the publication of Urry and Parker. Experimental results on elastic-contractile model proteins forged the concept, and the work of Urry and Parker extended the concept to contraction in biology. Unexpected in our examination of the relevance of this perspective to biology was to find the first clear demonstration of the concept in biology in a protein-based machine of the electron transport chain as a transmembrane protein of the inner mitochondrial membrane. Unimaginable was the occurrence of the coupled forces precisely at the nexus at which electron transfer couples to proton pumping. 

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