Nuclear quantum effects explain chemiosmosis: The power of the proton

Abstract

ATP is a universal bio-currency, with chemiosmosis the metabolic mint by which currency is printed. Chemiosmosis leverages a membrane potential and ion gradient, typically a proton gradient, to generate ATP. The current chemiosmotic hypothesis is both cannon and dogma. However, there are obstacles to the unqualified and uncritical acceptance of this model. Intriguingly the proton is sufficiently small to exhibit quantum phenomena of wave-particle duality, often thought the exclusive prerogative of smaller subcellular particles. Evidence shows that chemiosmosis is by necessity critically dependent upon these nuclear quantum effects (NQE) of hydrogen, most notably as a proton. It is well established scientific orthodoxy that protons in water and hydrogen atoms of water molecules exhibit quantum phenomena. The effect is amplified by the hydrogen bonding and juxta-membrane location of protons in mitochondria and chloroplasts. NQE explains the otherwise inexplicable features of chemiosmosis, including the paucity of protons, the rate of proton movement and ATP genesis in otherwise subliminal proton motive forces and thus functionality of alkaliphiles. It also accounts for the efficiencies of chemiosmosis reported at greater than 100% in certain contexts, which violates the second law of thermodynamics under the paradigm of classical physics.

Mitochondria may have evolved to exploit quantum biology with notable features such as dimeric ATP synthases adumbrating the first double-slip experiment with the protons. The dramatic global deceleration of mitochondrial chemiosmosis and all cellular function following proton substitution with its heavier isotopes, deuterium and tritium: “deuteruction”, is testimony to the primacy of nuclear quantum effects in this Quantum Chemiosmosis. Indeed the speed of evolution itself and its inexorable route to homeothermy may be due to the power of nuclear quantum effects of the smallest nucleus, the proton. The atom that is almost nothing was selected to bring about the most important processes and complex manifestations of life.