Enzymes work as 'Maxwell's demon' by using memory stored as motion

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• IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  but. the whole point is Maxwell’s demon is that it would violate thermodynamics

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  • spinne@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It may help to think of it as the authors invoking the idea of Maxwell’s demon to illustrate the elegance of the enzymes involved instead of an actual Maxwell’s demon that would literally decrease the entropy in the system over time.

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    • IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      this is how scientists do clickbait

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  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The point of Maxwell’s demon is that there’s an intimate connection between thermodynamic entropy and information: increasing entropy reduces information, but adding information can reduce entropy.

    I think what they’re getting at here is that the enzyme’s state preserves information about its recent past which it then uses to reduce entropy the way Maxwell’s demon does.

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    • IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      going from a simple though experiment to being able to quantify the thermodynamics of information is one of my favorite concepts.

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• spinne@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Let me preface this by saying I didn’t do well in chemistry. I haven’t gotten any better at it over the years, so I could be looking at this entirely wrong.

  It sounds like these Maxwell’s demon enzymes do the catalysis, which causes enough of a change in their shape that it changes their mobility until they return to their original shape. That temporary conformation gives them better motility. That pushes them away from the products of the reaction, preventing the enzymes from reversing it when things calm down.

  When a system’s at equilibrium, that reaction would reverse as often as it proceeds, so this is the big deal part. By moving the enzyme away from the products, Maxwell’s demons ensure the system doesn’t remain at equilibrium without needing to use any additional energy. They don’t need to kick off a wall to swim away.

  It’s like how you’re not supposed to wear the same bra two days in a row because it wears out the elastic. After having been stretched over your body all day, the elastic stays stretched for a little while and takes time to return to its original shape. It’s not magic, it’s just a property of the material.

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• AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  the researchers constructed a theoretical model where the transient increase in motility served as a “memory” of the enzyme’s immediate past reaction event. The enzyme used this information to leave the product molecules, thereby eliminating the probability of the reverse reaction.

  So if I’m understanding correctly, just after an enzyme catalyzes a reaction it “remembers” that the products it just created must be nearby and kicks itself away from them?

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