Nonequilibrium Transport Induced by Biological Nanomachines

Abstract

Biological nanomachines are nanometer-size macromolecular complexes that catalyze chemical reactions in the presence of substrate molecules. The catalytic functions carried out by such nanomachines in the cytoplasm, and biological membranes are essential for cellular metabolism and homeostasis. During catalytic reactions, enzymes undergo conformational changes induced by substrate binding and product release. In recent years, these conformational dynamics have been considered to account for the nonequilibrium transport phenomena such as diffusion enhancement, chemotaxis, and substantial change in rheological properties, which are observed in biological systems. In this paper, we shall give an overview of the recent theoretical and experimental investigations that deal with nonequilibrium transport phenomena induced by biological nanomachines such as enzymes or proteins.