Tubulin dipole moment, dielectric constant and quantum behavior: computer simulations, experimental results and suggestions

2004/02/10 by Andreas Mershin, Alexandre A. Kolomenski, Hans A. Schuessler +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.bio-ph #physics.med-ph

paper · pdf

published as BioSystems, 77:73-85 (2004) · A.M. is corresponding author: [email protected] 32 double-spaced pages, 4 figures. Keywords: tubulin, electric dipole moment, biobit, bioqubit, quantum, entanglement, surface plasmon resonance, refractometry, refractive index, quantum brain

arxiv created 2004/02/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01

Abstract

We used computer simulation to calculate the electric dipole moments of the alpha and beta tubulin monomers and dimer and found those to be |palpha|=552D, |pbeta|=1193D and |palpha-beta|=1740D respectively. Independent surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and refractometry measurements of the high-frequency dielectric constant and polarizability strongly corroborated our previous SPR-derived results giving delta-n/delta-c ~1.800x10^-3 ml/mg. The refractive index of tubulin was measured to be n_tub ~2.90 and the high frequency tubulin dielectric constant kappa_tub ~8.41 while the high-frequency polarizability was found to be alpha_tub ~ 2.1x10^-33 C m²/V. Methods for the experimental determination of the low-frequency p are explored as well as ways to test the often conjectured quantum coherence and entanglement properties of tubulin. Biobits, bioqubits and other applications to bioelectronics are discussed.

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